Time unveils its person of the year and it’s the driving force looking to replace humans

The magazine has named a ‘Person of the Year’ since 1927

Time magazine has named its 2025 “Person of the Year” as the “Architects of AI.”

“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,” Time wrote in its announcement. “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.”

Time has named a “Person of the Year” since 1927 based on who its editors say shaped headlines the most over the past 12 months.

Though the picks are not often without controversy. In 1938, Adolf Hitler was named the magazine Person of the Year. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini was named to the cover in 1979.

The magazine said it deliberately selected people this year, or the “individuals who imagined, designed, and built AI,” rather than the technology itself.

Two of the 2025 cover images, including a recreation of the iconic 1932 photo ‘Lunch Atop a Skyscraper’ (Time)

“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,” Sam Jacobs, Time’s editor-in-chief, wrote while explaining the choice. “The drama surrounding the selection of the PC over Apple’s Steve Jobs later became the stuff of books and a movie.”

One of the cover images replicates the iconic “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” photograph from the 1930s, showing eight tech leaders sitting across the beam.

A second cover image shared by Time shows scaffolding surrounding giant letters reading “AI.”

The cover story notes 2025 made way for fierce debate about “how to wield AI responsibly,” before tech giants “gave way to a sprint to deploy it as fast as possible.”

“Every industry needs it, every company uses it, and every nation needs to build it,” Jensen Huang, the president and CEO of Nvidia, told Time.

AI had been a top contender for the coveted honor, according to prediction markets. Tech CEOs Jensen Huang of Nvidia and Sam Altman of OpenAI were also considered popular picks, as well as President Donald Trump, Pope Leo XIV and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.

Trump was named the 2024 person of the year after winning his second term in the White House.