TIME100 AI 2026 Maps Where AI Power Is Moving
The fourth annual list reaches beyond technology chiefs to include researchers, labor leaders, policymakers and cultural figures shaping AI’s development.
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TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI for 2026 shows how power over the technology is spreading beyond the executives building and financing it.
The fourth annual list includes business leaders, researchers, policymakers, labor advocates and cultural figures. Together, they reflect debates over AI infrastructure, Chinese competition, military use, jobs and creative rights.
Prominent names include Elon Musk, Anthropic co-founders Dario and Daniela Amodei, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Moonshot AI co-founder and CEO Yang Zhilin.
TIME also recognizes prominent critics of the industry. US Senator Bernie Sanders, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt appear for challenging how AI is being developed and who stands to benefit.
“The bottom line is, I think we have to stop the development of superintelligence,” Sanders told TIME.
Entertainment has also entered the AI power map. Ben Affleck made the list after founding InterPositive, a company building AI post-production tools for filmmakers that Netflix acquired earlier this year. Paris Hilton was included for her advocacy against non-consensual sexual deepfakes.
TIME said senior editor Ayesha Javed led months of reporting and deliberation to choose people who best represented the central AI storylines of the past year.
TIME is also adding AI reporters in London, Washington and San Francisco and plans to hold a TIME100 AI Leadership Forum in Washington next year.
Several major industry figures are absent. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis do not appear on the 2026 list, although all four featured among the eight people on TIME’s 2025 “Architects of AI” cover.
