Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2025 has been revealed, and it’s not a celebrity, president or politician. It’s also not an individual person.
This year’s cover star celebrates the most influential people in artificial intelligence.
The “architects of AI” - including Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, X owner Elon Musk and computer scientist Fei-Fei Li among others - appear on the publication’s main cover.
Also pictured alongside the tech chiefs are Jensen Huang, CEO of AI company Nvidia, Sam Altman, director of OpenAI which developed ChatGPT, Lisa Su, head of Advanced Micro Devices, Demis Hassabis of Deepmind and Dario Amodei of Anthropic.
They’re depicted talking, chatting on their phones and balancing a laptop on their lap on a steel beam high above New York City.
The photo imitates the iconic black and white “Lunch Atop Skyscraper” photo in 1932 when the Rockefeller Centre was being built.
The magazine said in a post on social media platform X: “2025 was the year when artificial intelligence’s full potential roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back.
“For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of AI are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year.”
The American based bi-weekly magazine’s editors decide who should feature on the cover based on which person, or group of people, have made the most headlines in the past year.
This isn't the first time Mr Musk has appeared on the red cover. He was crowned Person of the Year in 2021 for his far-reaching influence on and off Earth.
Last year, president Donald Trump was picked as the most influential figure for the second time.
In a story on their website, editor Sam Jacobs explained their decision. He said: “This was the year when artificial intelligence’s full potential roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back or opting out.
“Whatever the question was, AI was the answer.
“We’ve named not just individuals but also groups, more women than our founders could have imagined (though still not enough), and, on rare occasions, a concept: the endangered earth, in 1988, or the personal computer, in 1982.
“The drama surrounding the selection of the PC over Apple’s Steve Jobs later became the stuff of books and a movie.”
Jensen Huang and Sam Altman were also considered individually for the slot of Person of the Year.
As were NYC mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, Donald Trump, for what would have been a third time, and Pope Leo XIV.
