"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," the magazine wrote on Thursday.

"We saw the way it can accelerate medical research, productivity, and make the impossible possible," it continued.

While a highly anticipated announcement in US media circles, "Person of the Year" does not always mean the person or people in question have been a force for good. Dating back to 1927, the list also includes dictators like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

Indeed, the magazine noted many of the negative aspects of AI, including its extreme environmental impact and its use in replacing human labor and art.

One of the cover images reimagines a famous photo of construction workers eating lunch on a half-built skyscraper. Instead pictured are Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google's DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li of World Labs.

Bookmakers had AI and its progenitors at the top of their lists, while Pope Leo XIV and New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani were also considered top contenders.

Edited by: Sean Sinico