Time Names AI’s Power Brokers as 2025 Person of the Year

Time Magazine has named the “architects of artificial intelligence” as its 2025 Person of the Year, marking only the second time the title has gone to a technology rather than an individual. 

The choice reflects how quickly AI has moved to the center of global industry and public life.

The magazine unveiled two covers. One shows the letters AI rising like a monument under construction. 

The other features a reimagining of “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” with tech leaders sitting in place of ironworkers. NVIDIA chief Jensen Huang, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, X owner Elon Musk, AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, AMD’s Lisa Su, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis appear on it.

Time said 2025 marked a shift from caution to rapid deployment as firms poured billions into AI models and chip infrastructure. Altman recently said ChatGPT is used by around 800 million people every week, a sign of how deeply AI has entered daily routines. Zuckerberg has oriented Meta’s strategy around its own AI chatbot, placing it across its major apps.

Forrester analyst Thomas Husson called this year a tipping point. He told BBC that most people now use AI without realising it because it sits inside phones, computers and online services. He said its spread is moving faster than the rise of the internet or smartphones.

Time’s editors said no group shaped the year more than the people who design, fund and ship these systems. They said humanity will decide AI’s direction, not the technology itself.