Time has named the ‘Architects of AI’ its 2025 Person of the Year, in recognition of their enormous technological and social influence. To reflect the complexity and multiple dimensions of this revolution, the magazine runs two different covers.

The first, illustrated by Peter Crowther, depicts workers beside and on the giant letters ‘AI,’ symbol of all the infrastructure, engineering, and development that props up artificial intelligence. The second, by Jason Seiler, reinterprets the photograph Lunch Atop a Skyscraper (1932) to show eight top leaders of the sector, from left to right: : Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Lisa Su (AMD), Elon Musk (xAI), Jensen Huang (NVIDIA), Sam Altman (OpenAI), Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind), Dario Amodei (Anthropic), and Fei-Fei Li (World Labs).

The covers try to capture the duality of AI: the social and cultural impact of those who are at the helm of it, and the magnitude of the technological project itself. Time states that these figures have redefined politics, had a bearing on geopolitics, and launched technologies that are affecting economics, communications, education, and global ethical debates. Their election as Person of the Year highlights both their positive impact and the concerns that have arisen around the use of AI in our day-to-day lives.

The Architects of AI Are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year

Why the Architects of AI Are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year