Time Magazine Reveals Unique Selection For '2025 Person Of The Year'

TIME Magazine named the 'Architects of AI' as its '2025 Person of the Year' on Thursday (December 11), acknowledging that the potential of artificial intelligence "roared into view" this year.

"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. Whatever the question was, AI was the answer," TIME announced in a post shared on its Instagram account. "We saw the way it can accelerate medical research, productivity, and make the impossible possible. It was hard to read or watch anything without being confronted with news about the rapid advancement of a technology that mimics human thinking and intelligence. Those stories unleashed a million debates about how disruptive, how good and how bad, it would be for our lives.

"Yet the amount of energy required to run these systems drains resources. Jobs are going poof. Misinformation proliferates. Large-scale cyberattacks are possible without human intervention. And AI companies are lashed to the global economy in a gamble of epic proportions.

"Person of the Year is a powerful way to focus the world’s attention on the people that shape our lives. And this year, no one had a greater impact than the individuals who imagined, designed, and built AI. Humanity will determine AI’s path forward, and each of us can play a role in determining AI’s structure and future. Our work has trained it and sustained it, and now we find ourselves moving through a world increasingly defined by it.

"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."

Thomas Husson, principal analyst at research firm Forrester, described the 2025 shift in AI as “a novel technology explored by early adopters to one where a critical mass of consumers see it as part of their mainstream lives" when describing TIME's decision to ABC News via email. AI was long suspected to be TIME's top selection, according to predictions markets, which also listed tech CEOs Jensen Huang of Nvidia and Sam Altman of Open AI, as well as Pope Leo XIV, the first American to take over the papacy; President Donald Trump, who was selected in 2024 after his successful campaign; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani as contenders.