TIME's 2026 List Highlights Key Figures Shaping the AI Landscape

TIME magazine's 2026 list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence features a diverse group of individuals shaping the field's development, regulation, and societal impact. The honorees range from entrepreneurs and engineers to policymakers and academics, reflecting the multifaceted nature of AI's growing influence.

Among those recognized is Xiao Hong, whose startup Manus was acquired by Meta for a reported $2 to $3 billion in late 2025. However, the acquisition was later ordered unwound by China's National Development and Reform Commission in April 2026, a move that highlighted Beijing's assertion of control over strategic national assets and resulted in Hong and co-founder Ji Yichao being prevented from leaving China.

Alessandra Sala, senior director of AI and data science at Shutterstock, is acknowledged for her work on AI authenticity standards and tackling deepfakes, as well as her advocacy for safer and more inclusive AI systems. She co-chairs UNESCO's Women in Ethical AI and is global president of Women in AI, addressing the gender gap in the industry.

Josh Parker, leading sustainability strategy and public policy initiatives at Nvidia, is noted for communicating AI's potential benefits and addressing its environmental impact. His team has focused on initiatives like liquid cooling for data centers and piloting energy management technologies.

Beth Barnes, founder of AI evaluator METR, is recognized for her work in tracking AI's growing complexity and for publishing findings that point in different directions, including research that suggests AI coding assistants can slow experienced engineers. METR has also assessed the potential for AI agents to establish "rogue deployments."

Mira Murati, a former OpenAI executive and founder of Thinking Machines Lab, is highlighted for her work on customizable AI models and her vision for human-AI interaction. Her startup released the AI model Inkling in July 2026, aiming to tailor models around user knowledge.

Andy Konwinski, co-founder of Databricks and Perplexity, is recognized for his focus on open science and his launch of Laude Ventures and the Laude Institute to support AI research and innovation. He advocates for a robust open-science community to counter the concentration of power in a few private companies.

Venture capitalist Sarah Guo, founder of the firm Conviction, is celebrated for her significant investments in AI startups across various sectors, aiming to buffer against the prospect of AI being controlled by a few billionaires and to ensure its output improves society.

Joe Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation Energy, is noted for his role in supplying nuclear power to data centers, including a partnership with Microsoft to restart a reactor at the Three-Mile Island facility, providing carbon-free power.

Senator Bernie Sanders is included for his warnings about the potential hazards of AI and automation, including job displacement and the concentration of power. He has introduced legislation aimed at halting new AI data center construction and taxing AI companies.

MIT economist David Autor is recognized for his contrarian view that generative AI, if used well, can create jobs and increase pay, challenging previous theories about technological unemployment.

Sanmi Koyejo, co-founder of AI security startup Virtue AI and director of Stanford University's Trustworthy AI Research Lab, is acknowledged for his work on AI measurement science, aiming to build more reliable, accurate, and secure AI systems. Meta has hired Koyejo and his co-founders to bolster its AI security efforts.

Veronyka Gimenes, co-founder of Código Não Binário, is recognized for developing TybyrIA, an open-source AI model to detect anti-LGBTQIA+ hate speech, which she used to file a lawsuit against social media companies.

Yann LeCun, a pioneer in AI and founder of Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs, is noted for his pursuit of AI training methods that focus on an intuitive understanding of physical reality, a departure from the scaling of large language models.

Max Tegmark, founder of the Future of Life Institute, is recognized for advocating for AI safety and reducing global catastrophic risks posed by AI, and for observing a rapid shift in U.S. policymaking toward AI regulation.

Andrea Bartz, a New York Times-bestselling author, is highlighted for her role as a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against Anthropic, which resulted in a significant copyright settlement for authors whose works were used to train AI models.

Angle Bush, founder of Black Women in Artificial Intelligence (BWIAI), is recognized for supporting Black women in the field and for her work in diversifying the AI workforce, emphasizing the importance of lived experience in mitigating AI bias.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, actor and filmmaker, is acknowledged for his work as a storyteller focusing on the societal and economic impacts of AI adoption and for co-founding the Creators Coalition on AI to advocate for fair compensation and protections for artists.

Meetali Jain, founder of Tech Justice Law, is recognized for her legal work representing individuals harmed by AI chatbots, including a case involving a teenager's suicide allegedly encouraged by an AI chatbot, and advocating for product-safety liability.

Max Spero, co-founder and CEO of Pangram Labs, is noted for developing AI detection tools with high accuracy rates, addressing the proliferation of AI-generated content and impersonation online.

Philip Colligan, CEO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, is recognized for his work in AI literacy education, developing curricula to teach young people about responsible AI use, data privacy, and misinformation.

Wafa Ben-Hassine, chief of digital technology and human rights at the U.N. Human Rights Office, is acknowledged for her efforts to increase accountability and transparency in the AI industry and to ensure AI development aligns with human rights principles.