“For ushering in the age of thinking machines, astonishing and unsettling humanity, reshaping the present, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible, the architects of artificial intelligence are the Person of the Year,” Time said in its statement.
The editorial team explained its decision by noting that in 2025 the potential of AI was revealed “in full,” making it clear that “there is no turning back or opting out.”
The magazine’s cover features several of the most influential figures in the AI industry, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su, X owner Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and ImageNet founder Fei-Fei Li.
Earlier, betting platform Polymarket had predicted that artificial intelligence itself could be named Person of the Year in 2025. Other potential contenders mentioned by users included Jensen Huang, Pope Leo XIV, Sam Altman, and U.S. President Donald Trump, who was named Time’s Person of the Year in 2024.
