TIME has released the fourth edition of its TIME100 AI list, naming 100 figures it sees as shaping the artificial intelligence sector. Among the 17 cover faces this year are not only familiar AI executives such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei, but also a labor leader and a Hollywood actor, widening the frame of who is seen as influencing the AI wave.
Four categories across the list
TIME divided the ranking into four groups: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers, and Thinkers. The editorial team said it spent months researching candidates and sought recommendations from industry leaders and dozens of experts before finalizing the list.
Leaders and Innovators
The Leaders category includes a roster of well-known names: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman; Anthropic co-founders Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei; SpaceX CEO Elon Musk; Amazon founder Jeff Bezos; Oracle co-founder and CTO Larry Ellison; IBM CEO Arvind Krishna; and Google DeepMind Chief AI Readiness Officer Lila Ibrahim.
The Innovators group brings in a younger set of founders, including Cursor co-founder Michael Truell, Suno co-founder Mikey Shulman, and Cerebras Systems co-founder Andrew Feldman. OpenEvidence founder and CEO Daniel Nadler was cited for bringing AI into doctors’ consultations, while Harvey co-founder Winston Weinberg was noted for taking legal AI into law firms.
The list also includes an individual developer, OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger, placing him on the same ranking as Bezos and Musk.
Shapers and Thinkers
The Shapers category turns to policy and capital. Those listed include International Telecommunication Union Secretary-General Doreen Bogdan-Martin, actor Gordon-Levitt, and Sequoia Capital partners Pat Grady and Alfred Lin.
In the Thinkers category, TIME named several executives tied to AI infrastructure and computing power: Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, AWS CEO Matt Garman, CoreWeave co-founder and CEO Michael Intrator, Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman, and Micron chairman and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra.
As the report noted, most of these figures do not build consumer-facing products, but they influence whether models can be trained and how cheaply they can be run.
Chinese companies gain visibility
One of the clearest signals in this year’s list is the stronger visibility of Chinese executives and founders. In the Leaders category, TIME included ByteDance co-founder and CEO Liang Rubo, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu, Huawei board member He Tingbo, and SMIC co-CEO Liang Mong-Song.
In Innovators, the list includes Moonshot AI co-founder and CEO Yang Zhilin, BYD executive vice president Stella Li, Zhiyuan Robotics founder and CEO Deng Taihua, Zhipu CEO Zhang Peng, and Manus founder and CEO Xiao Hong.
In his editor’s letter, Sam Jacobs specifically highlighted Yang Zhilin, writing that the Moonshot AI researcher had "built models that have attracted enormous attention and at times even surpassed the most advanced American competitors."