Architects Of A.I. Named The 2025 Time Person Of The Year
There were many names at the tip of the tongue for 2025 Time Person of the Year.
Pope Leo XIV becoming the first American Bishop of Rome made him a notable candidate; or even New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani, for his youthfulness and status as a committed Socialist, could have been an interesting recipient.
Perhaps it could’ve even been the late conservative Charlie Kirk, who was killed while addressing students at one of his political campus events with Turning Point USA on Sept. 10.
However, in the morning of Thursday, Dec. 11, the title’s recipient was announced…
The 2025 Time Person of the Year is the Architects of A.I.
About The 2025 Winner
“For decades, humankind steeled itself for the rise of thinking machines. As we marveled at their ability to beat chess champions and predict protein structures, we also recoiled from their inherent uncanniness, not to mention the threats to our sense of humanity.”
– Time, on the subject of the work of its 2025 Person of the Year: The Architects of A.I.
Listed among the architects of artificial intelligence in Time‘s announcement of its Person of the Year are:
- Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta;
- Lisa Su, CEO of AMD;
- Elon Musk, CEO of xAI;
- Jensen Huang, president and CEO of Nvidia;
- Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI;
- Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind Technologies;
- Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic; and
- Fei-Fei Li, co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute, and CEO of World Labs.
Time attributes the year being defined by A.I. by the inauguration of President Donald Trump, which it says was a moment that can be seen as “setting the tone” for 2025.
Not only did many tech CEOs attend his inauguration, but his focus as president has been, in part, to make A.I. proliferation and policy a subject of great importance.
Of course, Trump was last year’s Person of the Year, and he had previously earned the title in 2016 as well.
Writing on A.I.’s influence over the past year, Time wrote:
“Whether bubble or historic boom, AI is transforming the way we move through the world. Increasingly this year, people began turning to the new wave of chatbots for both emotional support and practical assistance, with nearly half of U.S. small businesses using an AI chatbot in 2025, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”
The Time Person of the Year issue will hit newsstands on Dec. 29.
Read more about the Architects of A.I. on the Time website.
Past Recipients Who Were Not A Specific Person
The award goes back to 1927, with a recipient named every year.
Notably, 2025 is not the first time that the title of Person of the Year has not been awarded to a specific person, with the following being comparable past recipients:
- In 1960, the award went to U.S. Scientists;
- In 1975, it went to American Women;
- In 1982, it went to The Computer;
- In 1988, it went to The Endangered Earth;
- In 1993 it went to The Peacemakers;
- In 2002, it went to The Whistleblowers;
- In 2003, it went to The American Soldier;
- In 2005, it went to The Good Samaritans;
- In 2006, it went to You (online content creators);
- In 2011, it went to The Protester;
- In 2014, it went to The Ebola Fighters;
- In 2017, it went to The Silence Breakers (#MeToo);
- In 2018, it went to The Guardians; and
- In 2022, it went to The Spirit of Ukraine (in addition to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy).
Online Responses To Time’s 2025 Selection
Looking to the comment section on Time‘s social media accounts, one can quickly see the general tone of how the 2025 Person of the Year is being received.
On Facebook, one person wrote, “Did humans actually vote over there? Or did they let the algorithm decide who it was?”
Regarding the magazine cover art featuring the individuals named among the “Architects of A.I.,” a comment reads, “At least the cover art is human. Nice work, Jason Seiler!”
Referring to Pope Leo XIV, another commenter wrote, “That’s ok, a no go for me. I’ll take the quiet charismatic moral leader of a billion Catholics instead.”
Similarly, comments on Instagram were also largely disparaging of the 2025 selection.
“Imagine if dinosaurs named The Meteorite as Person of the Year,” wrote one Instagram user.
Another person looked to the title of “Architects of A.I.,” noting it may have been misattributed to CEOs rather than engineers and developers. This person wrote:
“You named the “AI architect” as Person of the Year, yet the cover is filled with CEOs. Where are the actual architects — the engineers, researchers, and developers who build these systems line by line? The people who work behind the scenes, often without recognition? If the intention was to honor the true creators, it would have made far more sense to acknowledge AI itself or the countless individuals who make it possible, rather than presenting a narrative that feels misleading.”
What do you think?