Time has released a list of 100 influential people in the world of AI

The US magazine Time has released a list of 100 people who have had a significant impact on the world of artificial intelligence or AI. The list, titled ‘Time100 AI 2026’, includes top executives from technology companies, researchers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, labor activists and representatives of the creative industries. The list was released amid the rapid spread of AI and its growing impact on the economy and society.

Time has now divided the 100 people into four categories: ‘Leaders’, ‘Innovators’, ‘Shapers’ and ‘Thinkers’. The ‘Leaders’ category includes OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer Mark Chen, CEO Sam Altman and President Greg Brockman. The category also includes SpaceX’s Elon Musk, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, IBM’s Arvind Krishna, Google DeepMind’s Leela Ibrahim and ByteDance’s Liang Rubo.

People who have played a key role in developing AI infrastructure and technology are also included in the list. They include Broadcom's Hock Tan, Oracle's Larry Ellison, CoreWave's Michael Intrator, and SMIC's Liang Mong Song. On the other hand, the 'Innovators' category includes people like Daniel Nadler of OpenEvidence, Michael Truell of Cursor, Yang Zhilin of Moonshot AI, Caltech's Professor Anima Anandakumar, and Cerebrus Systems' Andrew Feldman.

The impact of AI on the creative industries also received special attention this time around. Actor and filmmaker Ben Affleck is in the 'Innovators' category. The same category includes Suno co-founder Mickey Schulman and Tartel's Mohammed Musa. And people working on the policy and social impact of AI are in the 'Shapers' category. The list includes Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union, and actor and filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, co-founder of the Creators Coalition on AI, works to promote the participation of artists and the general public in the use of AI and to protect the rights of creative people. The inclusion of people from such diverse backgrounds on Time’s list this year makes it clear that AI is now having a major impact not only in the technology sector, but also in business, policy, infrastructure and the creative industries.