Time magazine has selected the “Architects of AI” as its Person of the Year, highlighting 2025 as the pivotal moment when Artificial Intelligence’s full potential became undeniably evident.

In an announcement made on Thursday (Friday AEDT), Time stated, “For ushering in the era of thinking machines, for both astonishing and challenging humanity, and for reshaping the present while pushing the boundaries of possibility, the Architects of AI have been named TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year.”

The magazine emphasized its decision to honor the people behind AI—the visionaries, designers, and builders—rather than the technology itself, although there was a precedent for choosing concepts in the past.

Sam Jacobs, editor-in-chief of Time, elaborated on the decision, saying, “Our selections have included not only individuals but also groups, more women than our founders might have envisioned (though still not enough), and occasionally, a concept: the endangered Earth in 1988 or the personal computer in 1982.”

Jacobs also noted the historical drama of choosing the personal computer over Steve Jobs in 1982, a decision that later became the subject of both books and a film.

One of the cover images resembling the “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” photograph from the 1930s shows eight tech leaders sitting on the beam: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the CEO of Google’s DeepMind division Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, who launched her own start up World Labs last year.

Another cover image shows scaffolding surrounding the giant letters “AI” made to look like computer componentry.

Five of the eight people selected — Musk, Zuckerberg, Huang, Altman and Su — are already billionaires with a collective fortune of $US870 billion, based on the latest estimates compiled by Forbes magazine. Much of the wealth has been accumulated during the past three years of AI fever.

It made sense for Time to anoint AI because 2025 was the year that it shifted from “a novel technology explored by early adopters to one where a critical mass of consumers see it as part of their mainstream lives,” Thomas Husson, principal analyst at research firm Forrester, said by email.

The magazine noted AI company CEOs’ attendance at US President Donald Trump’s inauguration this year in Washington DC as a herald for the prominence of the sector.

“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,” Jacobs wrote.

AI was a leading contender for the top slot, according to prediction markets, along with Huang and Altman. Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope whose election this year followed the death of Pope Francis, was also considered a contender, with Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani topping lists as well.

The magazine’s selection dates from 1927, when its editors have picked the person they say most shaped headlines over the previous 12 months.