How We Chose the 2026 TIME100 AI

Click here to see TIME’s full list of the 100 Most Influential People in AI 2026 We started the TIME100 AI three years ago with the goal of determining who were the most influential leaders in artificial intelligence , knowing that such a list would serve as a guide for our readers seeking to understand a booming field. Since then, if your experience with AI is anything like mine, the technology has gone from a curiosity to a constant in how we work and organize our lives. It’s become a primary way the world seeks out knowledge. The activity in AI has been explosive and divisive, filled with big promises and big fears. The individuals on the 2026 TIME100 AI reflect the tumultuous state of this field. In the past 12 months, we’ve seen executives like xAI’s Elon Musk take leading AI firms to the public markets; figures like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei clash with the Pentagon over how AI tools are used in war; founders like Oracle’s Larry Ellison rush to build the data centers the industry says AI needs to reach its full potential; and researchers like Chinese startup Moonshot AI’s Yang Zhilin build models that attract extraordinary attention and on occasion outperform the most advanced U.S. competitors. At the same time, a growing coalition of politicians and advocates like Senator Bernie Sanders , labor leader Liz Shuler , and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt are warning what these changes could mean. “The bottom line is, I think we have to stop the development of superintelligence,” Sanders tells TIME. Advertisement This year’s list selection was led by Ayesha Javed, who spent months working with TIME journalists and contributors to find the group of 100 individuals who best represent the year’s key storylines and who, in our opinion, are having the most influence in driving these developments. Alongside this year’s list, we take an unprecedented look inside OpenAI, whose release of ChatGPT in 2022 unleashed the world’s fascination with what this technology can do. For a stretch, the AI research company has seemed to lose momentum. Across dozens of interviews, we talked with company executives about how they think they are getting it back. Advertisement The growth of TIME100 AI is part of a more significant ambition at TIME, as we seek to lead our industry in the coverage of the remaking of the world by artificial intelligence. In recent years, our global team of reporters, editors, and producers has brought readers inside companies like Anthropic , Google , Nvidia , and Waymo ; broken news on robotics revealing what the next wave of automation looks like; and reported on the global data-center boom and the political backlash it has provoked, from a remote valley above the Arctic Circle in Norway to frontline communities in Tennessee and Texas . Last December, we named “ The Architects of AI ” our Person of the Year, a decision that reflected our commitment to covering the leaders shaping this technology and its meaning for our world. To support our continued investment in this work, we’re now expanding the presence of our AI team, adding reporters in London; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco. We’re also evolving the ways you can find their journalism. This fall, we’ll relaunch In the Loop, our newsletter about AI, with a new format. In the coming months, we plan to expand it to five days a week, giving readers a daily, essential briefing on the industry and the influences shaping it. Next year, we’ll build on the success of this year’s AI events in Davos, Switzerland; Cannes, France; New York City; and San Francisco by launching our first-ever TIME100 AI Leadership Forum in Washington, D.C. We are exploring additional opportunities to convene the world’s most influential AI leaders internationally too. Advertisement This work reflects TIME’s commitment to covering the most consequential story of our time with the ambition it demands—across every platform, through access and accountability, and careful scrutiny of AI’s promise and perils.