DEC.

29, 2025

PERSON YEAR OF
THE
THE
ARCHITECTS
OF AI

[Link]
DEC. 29, 2025

CEO OF
THE YEAR
YouTube’s
Neal Mohan

[Link]
DEC. 29, 2025

ENTERTAINER
OF THE YEAR
Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio

[Link]
DEC. 29, 2025

ATHLETE
OF THE YEAR
WNBA star
A’ja Wilson

[Link]
DEC. 29, 2025

BREAKTHROUGH
OF THE YEAR
Pop-culture
sensation
KPOP DEMON
HUNTERS

[Link]
 Vincent van Gogh © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Patrice Schmidt

It takes time to become an icon,

Imported by
Imported
Laurent-Perrier
by Laurent-Perrier
US - [Link]
US - [Link]
 when you are different.

P L E A S E E N J O Y C H A M PA G N E R E S P O N S I B LY
 VOL . 206, NOS. 21–22 | 2025

17
The Year in ...
A look back at the changes
2025 brought in health, climate,
politics, governance—and inside
the red border of the TIME cover

34
The Choice
By Sam Jacobs
36

PERSON
OF THE
YEAR
In a new technological revolution,
the Architects of AI drove the economy,
shaped geopolitics, and changed the way
we interact with the world
By Charlie Campbell, Andrew R. Chow,
and Billy Perrigo

54
CEO of the Year
YouTube’s Neal Mohan

D I C A P R I O : G E O R D I E W O O D F O R T I M E ; W I L S O N : K A N YA I W A N A F O R T I M E ; M O H A N : J E S S I C A C H O U F O R T I M E ; K P O P : P OY E N C H E N F O R T I M E
By Belinda Luscombe
62
Athlete of the Year
WNBA star A’ja Wilson
By Sean Gregory
72
Entertainer of the Year
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio
By Stephanie Zacharek
80
Breakthrough of the Year
KPop Demon Hunters
By Eliza Berman

87
Best of Culture
The top 10 movies,
television shows, books,
and albums of 2025

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8 Time December 29, 2025

 Vincent van Gogh created a new way to paint the world he saw,
becoming recognized long after his death for achieving some of
the most beautiful works in art history.

Grand Siècle seeks a perfection, with the ambition of recreating

« the perfect year », one that nature on its own will never
provide.

Because of our difference, it has taken us more time and a strong

belief in our vision to become recognized for what we do.

It takes time to become an icon

P L E A S E E N J O Y C H A M PA G N E R E S P O N S I B LY
FROM THE EDITOR

The year in review make movies for TIME. DiCaprio was photo-
graphed by Geordie Wood.
Eliza Berman, who has led TIME’s culture
WHILE THE RESULTS MAY BE DIFFERENT coverage since 2019, sat down with Ejae, Rei
each year, the Person of the Year issue always Ami, and Audrey Nuna, who are the main singing
starts the same way. Every fall, we ask TIME’s voices in KPop Demon Hunters, in New York City
journalists to submit nominations for the peo- in October. She lived and breathed KPop Demon
ple who had the most impact on the year. The Hunters in 2025, using TikTok tutorials to fash-
newsroom meets, debates, and argues. Over the ion Rumi’s dragon braid from purple hair exten-
following weeks, we narrow the field to a small sions for her daughter’s Halloween costume. The
group of contenders and choose our selec- Demon Hunters team in Berlin created an exclu-
tions across our categories—including, in 2025, sive animation for our cover, and inside the mag-
Person of the CEO, Athlete, Entertainer, and Breakthrough azine we have photography by Poyen Chen.
Year brings of the Year. Photography for this issue was overseen by
A project of this scale brings together hun- Katherine Pomerantz, Dilys Ng, Ava Selbach,
together dreds of people across the newsroom and our and Kim Bubello; video by Justine Simons and
hundreds of company, led by CEO Alexandra Robson; art
people across Jessica Sibley. This year’s direction by Chelsea
our company Person of the Year re- Kardokus, Victor Wil-
porting team included liams, and D.W. Pine
Charlie Campbell, based (who commissioned
in Singapore; Andrew his 16th Person of the
R. Chow in Washing- Year cover); audience-
ton, D.C.; and Billy Per- engagement strategy by
rigo in London—each Diana Elbasha; and our
of whom traveled across print and digital pro-
the world to interview duction by Lily Roth-
AI leaders and speak man and Merrill Fabry.
with people whose lives △ Working with Lori
have been impacted by A’ja Wilson photographed by Kanya Iwana Fradkin, Kelly Conniff
AI in 2025. The story in Miami on Nov. 24 oversaw this project for
features photography by the third time.
Frankie Alduino, Raul Ariano, Joe Pugliese, and This year’s “A Year in TIME” event, planned
Ko Tsuchiya. It was edited by Alex Altman and by Dan Macsai, Cate Matthews, Kara Simonetti,
Dayana Sarkisova. For more of TIME’s AI cov- and Jeff Smith, was held in New York City the
erage, subscribe to our AI newsletter, “In the night before Person of the Year was announced.
Loop,” led by Perrigo and Chow. The evening included appearances from Di-
Caprio, Mohan, and Wilson, as well as a special
OUR CEO OF THE YEAR, Neal Mohan, was pro- performance of the chart-topping hit “Golden”
filed by Belinda Luscombe, who’s become by KPop Demon Hunters’ Ejae, Ami, and Nuna.
something of a YouTube correspondent for A Year in TIME and Person of the Year are sup-
us, reporting on stars from megainfluencer ported by Rolex, TIME’s official timepiece.
MrBeast to Ryan Kaji, who at the ripe age of 10 We are embracing AI at TIME too, and seeing
once held a record for highest-paid individual how it can complement our storytelling and im-
on the platform. Mohan was photographed by prove the experience for our audiences. On our
Jessica Chou. website, in an effort led by Mark Howard and
Sean Gregory continues his streak of writing Michael Mraz, we have unveiled our new TIME
or co-writing all of TIME’s Athlete of the Year AI Agent. For the first time ever, you can expe-
profiles since we created the category in 2019. rience TIME’s entire archive in a personalized
He traveled to Las Vegas to witness A’ja Wilson experience, enabling research, audio briefings,
at the Aces’ raucous victory parade and inter- and translation into 13 different languages.
viewed the MVP in New York City. Her cover
portrait was taken by Kanya Iwana.
TIME film critic Stephanie Zacharek met
with One Battle After Another star Leonardo
DiCaprio, TIME’s Entertainer of the Year, in
Los Angeles this fall. This year, Zacharek marks Sam Jacobs,
a decade covering film and the people who EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
10 TIME December 29, 2025
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 CONVERSATION

On the covers

Illustration by Painting by
Peter Crowther Jason Seiler
for TIME for TIME

To illustrate the choice of the

Architects of AI as TIME’s 2025
Person of the Year, we asked two
artists to help us visualize the
technological revolution currently
under way. Read more about their
work at [Link]/POY2025covers
T I G H T S B Y F A L K E ; E A R R I N G S B Y C H R I S T I N A C A R U S O ; Y E A R I N T I M E : K E V I N M A Z U R — G E T T Y I M A G E S F O R T I M E (2), C R A I G B A R R I T T — G E T T Y I M A G E S F O R T I M E (2)

Photograph by Photograph by
B R E A K T H R O U G H C O V E R : S I M O N B A E K A N D M I N G J U E H E L E N C H E N ; S C O T T W ATA N A B E ; N E T F L I X ; W I L S O N F A S H I O N C R E D I T S : D R E S S B Y S T E L L A M C C A R T N E Y;

Geordie Wood Jessica Chou

for TIME for TIME

A Year in TIME
TIME celebrated some of 2025’s most influential people at a dinner on Dec. 10 in
New York City. Clockwise from top left: actor Leonardo DiCaprio, Entertainer of the Year,
in conversation with director Martin Scorsese; the team from Breakthrough of the Year
KPop Demon Hunters; the CEO of the Year, YouTube’s Neal Mohan, left, with TIME editor-in-chief
Sam Jacobs; WNBA star A’ja Wilson, Athlete of the Year. Read all of the stories at [Link]

TIME in Abu Dhabi

Photograph by Illustration by
Kanya Iwana Sony Pictures
To mark the inaugural TIME100 Impact for TIME Imageworks
Awards Abu Dhabi, TIME hosted an for TIME
invitation-only gala on Dec. 5 during
the Formula One Etihad Airways Grand
Prix weekend. The award’s recipients
included Alexis Ohanian, right, founder
of Seven Seven Six and Athlos; Jamie
Salter, founder and CEO at Authentic
Brands Group; Kate Kallot, founder
and CEO at Amini Tech; and Zak Brown,
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THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR

A new face in the Vatican and a familiar one in the White House.
Exciting advances in science and urgent reminders of the climate crisis.
Trailblazing leadership in the arts, sports, and business.
This was 2025 inside the red border.

17
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HE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YE

HEALTH
Unraveling
progress
BY ALICE PARK

in an era of fasT-paced
scientific advancements, it’s
easy to take medical gains for
granted. We expect break-
throughs to occur on a regular
basis, and 2025 delivered; suc-
cessful trials of gene therapies
for diseases that have no treat-
ments, for example, filled scien-
tists and the public with hope.
But bright spots like these were
overshadowed by a series of
political decisions in the U.S.
that have already started to set
public-health care back instead
of pushing it forward. Vaccines in the crosshairs Threats to future progress
The White House and the Many of the changes revolve around Public-health experts are vocally push-
nation’s top health agency, the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) ing back, citing decades of strong sci-
the Department of Health and agenda and a mistrust of vaccines led entific evidence showing that vaccines
Human Services (HHS), took by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy are safe and do not cause autism. The
a number of unprecedented Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic. In the source of much of the evidence on which
actions in fundamental areas spring, HHS withdrew important experts like these rely—not just about
of public health. They kicked investments in research into new vaccines, but about every aspect of
off the year with the disman- mRNA vaccines, and Kennedy also medicine—is scientific research funded
tling of USAID, shutting down announced on social media that the by NIH. What’s at stake when this
programs that provide life- CDC would no longer recommend the foundation’s resources are eroded—
saving global-health inter- yearly COVID vaccine for most Ameri- and trust in science crumbles—is the
ventions including childhood cans, which led some states to make scientific knowledge that drives many
vaccinations. The Administra- their own guidelines—continuing to medical decisions in the U.S., as well as
tion then slashed budgets and recommend these shots for residents the pipeline of innovative treatments for
personnel at the National In- and reimbursing the cost. all types of diseases. Immunotherapies
stitutes of Health, one of the In June, Kennedy fired members of that save so many lives from cancer
the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee began with funding from the NIH, for
world’s premier biomedical re-
and replaced them with people who example, as did several gene therapies
search centers and the spring- question the safety of vaccines, and in that reported positive results for the
board for innovations like the August, President Trump fired the first time this year in treating Hunting-
Hunting-
mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and CDC’s newly appointed head, Susan ton’s disease, a rare genetic disease in
immunotherapies for cancer. Monarez, when she clashed with newborns, and high cholesterol. These
Meanwhile, despite the lack of Kennedy over his vaccine strategy. therapies and others could one day cure
any new data to justify skepti- The Administration also reinstated a people of their conditions.
cism, the Centers for Disease previously disbanded task force to Without the basic research that made
Control and Prevention (CDC)
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y A L D O C R U S H E R F O R T I M E

reinvestigate the safety of childhood advances like these possible, the stream
is now sowing doubt about vaccines, even though data show that of innovative treatments that could save
the long-established safety of the shots are safe. Toward the end of both lives and health care costs could
vaccines, which public-health the year, the CDC’s website changed be reduced to a trickle in coming years,
researchers say could lead to to state that “the claim ‘vaccines do experts worry. And as people live longer,
spikes in infectious diseases. not cause autism’ is not an evidence- the protection from therapies scientists
The profound consequences of based claim.” haven’t even dreamed up yet may be
this year’s retrenchments will more urgently needed than ever.
be felt for years to come.
20 Time December 29, 2025
[Link] contact@[Link] 917-722-5050
HE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YE

CLIMATE
The fractured lowest-cost, easiest technology for
utilities. At the same time, the U.S. re-
agenda tained some of its tax incentives for
technologies like nuclear power and
BY JUSTIN WORLAND
energy storage (think of batteries). All
of this means the U.S. is doing its own
By The Time negoTiaTors from around The world thing—at home and abroad. Unlike
gathered in the Amazonian city of Belém in November to those of many other developed coun-
discuss the future of climate action, the world had already tries, its emissions are expected to
experienced an alarming year: near-record global tem- flatline instead of decline. And Amer-
peratures, unprecedented heat waves across continents, ica’s global climate influence will con-
and extreme flooding that scientists say would have been tinue to dissipate as it steps back.
virtually impossible without human-driven warming. The But the U.S. is the source of only
U.N. COP30 climate conference was supposed to signal a 12% of global emissions. Cheap renew-
global recommitment to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. ables and storage mean more green
Since oil, gas, and coal produce most of these, a group of energy around the globe. China has
countries pushed a plan to phase out fossil fuels. But in the become a clean-tech superpower and
face of opposition from oil and gas producers, the words Oil rigs in Alaska is keen to export its products. Chinese
fossil fuels did not appear in the final text. in September solar-cell exports increased 73% in the
The COP30 outcome offers an illustra- ▽ first half of the year
tion of the fractured, complicated state as prices hit record
of climate action in 2025. Some countries lows, according to
continue moving forward when it aligns data from energy
with short-term economic and political think tank Ember.
realities. Others, most importantly the For countries eager
U.S., have refused to participate entirely. to develop, renew-
When President Donald Trump took ables have become
office in January, many feared a dramatic irresistible.
global pullback. Instead, we’ve entered a All of these de-
messy moment with different countries velopments are
pursuing a range of strategies based on happening against
perceived self-interest, and companies the backdrop of es-
moving ahead with sustainability efforts calating climate
when they advance the bottom line. At the disasters—and, for
end of the day, decarbonization will con- that reason, the
tinue based purely on economics, but what world has increas-
that looks like from place to place varies wildly. At the same ingly turned to the issue of climate ad-
time, it’s unclear how much of the growing cost of climate aptation. In climate lingo, that means
change can be avoided. taking preparatory measures and
climate-proofing infrastructure.
aFTER TRUMP’S INaUGURaTION, many of climate ad- It’s long been a debate among cli-
vocates’ darkest fears were realized—and worse. Trump mate experts about how much to em-
brought the offshore wind industry to a halt as his Admin- phasize adaptation in comparison to
istration froze projects with pre-existing approvals. It cut cutting emissions. This year may have
federal support for electric vehicles, along with wind and tipped the scales. “Even in the best-
N AT H A N I E L W I L D E R — B L O O M B E R G /G E T T Y I M A G E S

solar power, as it worked with a Republican Congress to case scenario, we need to adapt,” says
dismantle a law that subsidized clean technologies. And the Dave Sivaprasad, a climate-focused
Administration launched an assault on the science of cli- managing director at global consult-
mate change with a Department of Energy report challeng- ing firm BCG. “But the effectiveness
ing its basic premises and, by extension, federal authority of adaptation dramatically reduces
to address the issue. China has once we get into more severe climate
These efforts will be mitigated somewhat by economic become a scenarios.” In 2025, as costs began to
realities. Power demand is growing in the U.S. for the first stack, it has become increasingly clear
time in decades—driven in large part by the rapid growth clean-tech that we will need a lot more of both.
in AI data centers—and renewable energy has become the superpower And the clock is ticking. □
22 Time December 29, 2025
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 On November 4th in Rio de Janeiro, TIME gathered some of the world’s most influential voices,
including honorees on the TIME100 Climate List, for a special TIME100 Impact dinner focused on spotlighting
real solutions for protecting our planet.

Experience more at [Link]/cop30-impact-dinner.

E D U A R D O PA E S M AYOR OF RIO DE J ANEIRO; PRES IDENT J ENNIFER G EERLING S -S IM ONS PRESIDENT OF SUR INAME; SYL VIA EAR L E EXPL OR ER - AT- L AR GE, NATIONAL GEOGR APHIC; F OU NDER & CHAIR MISSION B L UE;
P E T E R FERNANDEZ C O-FOUNDER AND EXEC UTIVE C HAIRM AN, M OM BAK; ELIZAB ETH WATHUTI ENVIR ONMENTAL IST, YOU NG CL IMATE ACTIVIST, AND F OU NDER , GR EEN GENER ATION INITIATIVE

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HE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR

LAST YEAR’S PERSON OF THE YEAR SPENT 2025 TESTING THE LIMITS OF HIS OFFICE
By Brian Bennett

D
onald Trump had been waiTing four
years to get back in the Oval Office, and he ar-
rived with a long to-do list. “They came out of
the gate like Man o’ War,” says Joseph Grogan,
who served as director of Trump’s domestic policy council
during the first term. “They set a blistering pace of admin-
istrative actions across all major agencies.”
On his first day alone, he pulled the U.S. out of the Paris
climate-change agreement, froze all foreign aid, suspended
refugee admissions, and granted clemency to more than
1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot that
tried to overturn his 2020 election loss. And he was just
getting started. Within a month, he’d fired 17 inspectors
general, allowed immigration agents to arrest people inside
courthouses, taunted Denmark about handing over Green-
land, announced steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and
said the U.S. should “own” the Gaza Strip.
Within two, he had deported Venezuelan men to a noto-
rious prison in El Salvador, declared English the country’s
official language, and bawled out Ukraine’s President in the
Oval Office as cameras rolled.
It was hard to keep up. Presidents typically sprint to
get things done during their first year in office, while they
can ride the momentum from a winning campaign. But
Trump’s pace as he returned to the White House was head-
spinning. “It is obvious the team knows they are in a hurry,”
Grogan says. Many of those working with Trump were frus-
trated with how often courts blocked major initiatives in He shut down a Biden-era program
his first term and how investigations and Trump’s impeach- that allowed migrants to make an ap-
ment distracted from their work, Grogan says, and they are pointment at the border to request
trying to make up for that. asylum and revoked temporary pro-
While Trump continued to court controversy, his team tective status for more than 675,000
kept up its relentless pace to enact his domestic agenda. people residing in the U.S. He then
They stripped away energy regulations in an effort to in- mobilized the Border Patrol and ICE
crease U.S. oil and gas production and gutted subsidies agents to make visible and often indis-
for wind and solar projects. They pushed out more than criminate arrests in communities and
300,000 civil servants, stripped away COVID vaccine re- ramped up deportations. Trump de-
quirements, and froze research funding to major universi- ployed the National Guard in Los An-
ties to pressure them to end diversity programs and hire geles to confront protests against his
more conservatives as faculty. immigration actions—and sent Guard
During Trump’s first term, he burned through a lot of troops to Washington, D.C., and Mem-
time trying to get Congress to repeal the Affordable Care phis, saying it was to address crime.
Act. This time, Trump shifted his strategy. He prioritized Daily life for migrants in communities
tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, and eventually across the country was upended. Bor-
insisted they be wrapped with a laundry list of his other der crossings between points of entry
agenda items—including ending green-energy subsidies plummeted.
and massively expanding funding for border and immigra-
tion enforcement. Some Republicans balked at the strategy, Whereas Trump’s immigraTion
but it worked. In July, Trump signed the One Big Beautiful regime has been brutally consistent,
Bill Act into law. his erratic use of tariffs roiled world
The new funding for Trump’s immigration agenda— and industry leaders. Stock mar-
a whopping $170 billion—was just one part of Trump’s kets endured a roller-coaster spring
stark overhaul of the country’s approach to immigration. as Trump dramatically announced
26 Time December 29, 2025
IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE

used for Ukraine’s defense. He killed dozens in military

strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats on the Caribbean
and Pacific that many decried as illegal and callous. He hit
Iranian nuclear facilities, then declared an end to an aerial
war between Israel and Iran. He persuaded Middle East
states to back his cease-fire plan for Gaza, which required
Hamas to return the remaining 20 living hostages kid-
napped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.
On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump wasn’t shy about
saying he would use a second term to get revenge on his
enemies. He followed through, siccing his Justice Depart-
ment on longtime adversaries like former FBI Director
James Comey and New York State attorney general Letitia
James, and targeting law firms that had previously con-
ducted work or hired lawyers he didn’t like. The retribution
campaign, along with a wide range of profitable business
‘They endeavors by Trump and his family, drew charges of an Ad-
ministration beset by corruption.
came out
of the gate At every turn, Trump used his knack for dominat-
ing news cycles to make himself the focus of attention all
like Man year. But identifying which efforts will be worthy of space
o’ War.’ in history books requires some sifting through the noise,
—JOSEPH GROGAN, says Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican strategist. “He has
FORMER TRUMP taken more actions and made more news than any other
ADVISER President in my lifetime in one year, but that news and
those actions have not necessarily led to lasting accom-
historically high tariffs on dozens plishments,” says Ayres.
of trading partners, and then post- Trump’s approval rating started the year at 47%, ac-
poned or rolled back many of them, cording to Gallup polling, but has hovered near 40% since
frustrating both large and small busi- the summer. Ramping up deportations of immigrants who
ness owners, who have struggled with have lived in the U.S. for years is broadly unpopular. But
the uncertainty around what imports voters give Trump credit for reducing the flow of illegal
will cost. border crossings, says Ayres. “It’s quite an accomplishment
While Trump presented the tariffs that he has effectively shut down the southern border with-
as part of a plan to revive domestic out spending a lot of money,” Ayres says.
manufacturing, he also used the threat Other Trump policies that have been popular with
of tariffs as a tool of international di- Americans, according to Ayres, are getting Europe to in-
plomacy. When India and Pakistan ex- crease defense spending, negotiating the cease-fire in Gaza,
changed fire earlier this year, Trump and addressing concerns about transgender athletes com-
claimed it was his threat of new tariffs peting in youth sports.
that persuaded the two longtime ad- But voters were less positive on Trump’s first year over-
versaries to stand down. “If I didn’t all. Millions turned out in cities across the country for
have the power of tariffs, you would anti-Trump “No Kings” protests in June and October. The
have at least four of the seven wars off-cycle elections in New Jersey and Virginia were a disas-
raging,” Trump said in the Oval Office ter for Republicans, as many voters who pulled the lever
on Oct. 6. “Not only did we make hun- for Trump in 2024 backed Democrats who promised to
D AV I D R A M O S — G E T T Y I M A G E S

dreds of billions of dollars, but we’re a do more to address high prices and push back on Trump’s
peacekeeper because of tariffs.” chaotic leadership. With the midterm elections coming in
On the world stage, Trump also 2026, Trump and Republicans will make reversing public
pressured European countries to in- sentiment a priority. How Trump addresses the issues top-
vest more in their own militaries and ping most polls—the economy and the increasing cost of
to pay more for weapons shipments living—could define his second year in office.
27
HE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR

A TIMELINE OF KEY MOMENTS FROM THE PRESIDENT ’S SECOND TERM SO FAR

Jan. 21 Feb. 4
Allows ICE to make civil Says during an event with
immigration arrests Israeli Prime Minister
inside courthouses Benjamin Netanyahu that
the U.S. should “own” the
Jan. 24 Gaza Strip, “level the site,”
Fires 17 inspectors and make it the “Riviera of
general tasked with the Middle East”
investigating waste,
fraud, and abuse at
federal agencies

Signs into law the Laken

Riley Act, which requires
detention of immigrants
charged with theft or
assault of officers
Jan. 20, 2025
Takes the oath of office Jan. 25
inside the Capitol Tells reporters on Air
Rotunda Force One, “I think
Greenland we’ll get,” as
his push to acquire the Feb. 28
Grants clemency to more
territory from Denmark Joins Vice President J.D.
than 1,500 charged in
stuns European allies Vance in berating Ukrai-
the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at
nian President Volodymyr
the Capitol
Jan. 28 Zelensky in Oval Office
Withdraws the U.S. from Office of Personnel
Management sends
the Paris Agreement on
“Fork in the Road” email March 1
reducing greenhouse-gas Declares English the
emissions to federal workers with
offer to resign and be official language of the
paid through Sept. 30 United States
Changes the official
government name of the
Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of Feb. 1
America Citing a national
emergency on illegal
immigration and fentanyl
Creates Department of smuggling, announces
Government Efficiency plan to impose 25%
and announces a federal tariffs on most imports
hiring freeze from Canada and Mexico

Suspends the U.S. Feb. 3

Refugee Admissions Tells reporters he’d “like
Program and freezes all to see Canada become
foreign aid our 51st state”

Signs an Executive Order

ending the constitutional
right of citizenship March 15
to those born in the Invokes the Alien Enemies
U.S., which is quickly Act of 1798 to deport
challenged in court alleged Venezuelan gang
members to a notorious
T H I S PA G E , C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T:
C H I P S O M O D E V I L L A — P O O L /A F P/G E T T Y Issues guidance prison in El Salvador
I M A G E S ; J I M L O S C A L Z O — E PA / B L O O M B E R G / to Immigration and
G E T T Y I M A G E S ; E L S A LVA D O R P R E S I D E N C Y/
H A N D O U T/A N A D O L U/G E T T Y I M A G E S ; C H R I S Customs Enforcement
Orders missile strikes
K L E P O N I S — C N P/ B L O O M B E R G /G E T T Y (ICE) allowing
I M A G E S ; K E V I N D I E T S C H — G E T T Y I M A G E S; against Houthi militants in
O P P O S I T E PA G E , C L O C K W I S E F R O M L E F T: immigration arrests at
Yemen, the plans for which
J A S O N A R M O N D — L O S A N G E L E S T I M E S/ schools, hospitals, and
GE T T Y IM AGES; BRENDA N SMIALOWSK I — Defense Secretary Pete
P O O L /A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S; J A C Q U E LY N public gatherings
MARTIN — AP; MARK SCHIEFELBEIN — AP;
Hegseth inadvertently texts
ARIEL SCHALIT— A P; TRUTH SOCIAL to a journalist
IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE YEAR IN • THE

March 24 June 22 Sept. 10 Oct. 20

Signs an Executive Order Orders airstrikes on Posts on Truth Social that Begins demolition of
authorizing 25% tariffs on nuclear facilities in Iran Charlie Kirk is dead after the White House’s East
goods from any country being shot at Utah Valley Wing to build a ballroom,
importing Venezuelan oil June 30 University saying donors will cover
Shuts down the U.S. construction costs
April 2 Agency for International Sept. 15
Announces 10% tariff on Development Deploys the National
all imports and singles Guard to Memphis Oct. 29
out some countries Announces on Truth
for higher rates at Sept. 20 Social that the U.S. will
“Liberation Day” event Publicly pressures “start testing our Nuclear
Attorney General Pam Weapons” in light of
April 30 Bondi to indict former “other countries testing
Signs deal with Ukraine FBI Director James programs”
to create a shared Comey, which the Justice
investment fund for rare Department does five Nov. 17
U.N. Security Council
earth mining to offset July 4 days later
cost of American-made adopts Trump’s plan to
Signs into law the One
weapons Sept. 22 end the war in Gaza
Big Beautiful Bill Act, a
large spending package Designates “Antifa”
May 12 that reduces taxes on a domestic terrorist
Admits 59 white South corporations and the organization
Africans to U.S. as wealthy and strips away
refugees investments aimed at Sept. 25
reducing fossil-fuel use Issues a memorandum
May 21 instructing the FBI to
Berates South investigate groups that
African President Cyril July 18 promote violence based
Ramaphosa in Oval Office Secures release of 10 on “anti-Christianity,”
American prisoners in “anti-Capitalism,”
Venezuela in exchange “extremism on migration,”
for return home of 252 and “hostility toward
Venezuelans the U.S. those who hold traditional
sent to El Salvador’s views”
notorious CECOT prison Nov. 18
Sept. 29 Contradicting U.S. intel-
Aug. 11 Announces Israel has ligence findings, says
Deploys National Guard accepted a U.S. plan for that Saudi Crown Prince
in Washington, D.C., a cease-fire and puts Mohammed bin Salman
and declares a “crime himself in charge of a “knew nothing” about
emergency” future “Peace Council” the killing of Washington
June 7 overseeing the Post journalist Jamal
Deploys the National Gaza Strip Khashoggi and that
Guard to Los Angeles to “things happen.”
protect federal buildings
and personnel during Oct. 13
protests Hamas releases all Nov. 19
20 living Israeli Signs bill to release case
hostages who had been files of convicted sex
June 10 held in Gaza for more offender Jeffrey Epstein,
Announces seven military Sept. 2 than two years after months of opposing it
bases reverting to names Posts a video on social
that previously honored media of the U.S. military
Confederate leaders blowing up a boat at sea,
saying the strike killed 11
June 17 “narcoterrorists.” Within
While Israel strikes three months, similar
Iranian nuclear sites and U.S. strikes kill more
Iran launches missile than 80 people
barrages at Israel, calls
for Iran’s “unconditional
surrender” and asserts
U.S. now has “total
control” of Iran airspace
 PAID PARTNERSHIP WITH e&

Designing Tomorrow:
Inside the UAE’s Blueprint
for a Tech-Driven Future
The United Arab Emirates has never waited for tomorrow’s world autonomous-mobility infrastructure aim to make tomorrow’s
to unfold; it constructs it. From sand to skyline and now from “smart” cities truly intelligent. Cities that learn, predict, and
connectivity to creativity, the nation is shifting gears from being respond. Each deployment of new network capabilities
a user of digital tools to a maker of them. This is the new chapter contributes to the country’s ambition set out in We the UAE
in its story: a blueprint for a tech-driven future powered by vision, 2031: to be among the most connected and innovation-ready
precision, and people. nations on earth.

The Race to 6G and Beyond Proactive Governance for

Every economy needs a digital backbone. The spine of the Future Tech
Every economy needs a digital backbone. The spine of the
UAE is already world-class, ranked first globally for ICT use, Technology moves fast, but governance must move faster. The
government efficiency, and mobile coverage. Yet the country UAE’s policy engine is designed to set the pace not by waiting
isn’t pausing to celebrate; it is investing in the next generation of for global rulebooks, but by writing them.
connectivity with 5.5G and 6G networks that can underpin smart Under the UAE Digital Economy Strategy, the goal is clear:
cities, autonomous mobility, and edge-computing ecosystems. double the digital economy’s contribution to non-oil GDP from
“Fast, reliable connectivity remains the foundation for 9.7% (2022) to 19.4% within a decade. Achieving that means
digitally empowered societies, opening doors to learning treating regulation not as a speed bump, but as a launchpad.
where there were once New frameworks for AI ethics, blockchain, and data governance
barriers, turning local are meant to turn complexity into clarity, giving innovators
entrepreneurs into global confidence to build boldly while protecting trust. In a world
contenders, and bringing debating how to control emerging tech, the UAE provides an
people closer together,” example of how to guide it.
explains Hatem Dowidar,
Group Chief Executive Integration Across Sectors
Officer at e&.
A single spark doesn’t power a city; a connected grid does.
Businesses such as The UAE’s digital ecosystem works the same way, linking
e& play a key role in government, business, and academia into one network
this transformation. of progress.
Under the leadership of
Today, the UAE offers a prime example of how cross-sector
Dowidar, the company
collaboration can attract global capital. As the nation accelerates
has evolved from
its digital economy, partnerships between technology leaders
telecom provider to
and policymakers have become key enablers of progress. At
technology architect,
e&, the company’s verticals bridge telecom, fintech, cloud
wiring the nation’s
computing, and cybersecurity, enabling public and private
ambitions into every
entities to digitalize quickly and securely. The company’s
home, enterprise, and
expansion into AI-enabled cloud services and smart city
city grid. Its investments
solutions has made it a critical partner for both government
in edge computing and
digitalization initiatives and private sector transformation.
 PAID PARTNERSHIP WITH e&

The Human-Centric Dimension

Technology in the UAE is never an end in itself; it is a means
to improve life. Smart-city initiatives translate advanced
connectivity into tangible public benefit. The concept of
“proactive services,” where government systems anticipate
citizens’ needs and deliver solutions before requests are made,
illustrates how artificial intelligence can humanize governance.
This is exemplified by Abu Dhabi’s unveiling of TAMM AutoGov,
billed as the world’s first AI public servant. Developed under
the Department of Government Enablement (DGE), the new
AutoGov feature can automatically handle daily administrative
tasks such as license renewals, bill payments, and healthcare
appointments, all without users having to log in or remember
deadlines. The aim is to allow residents to focus on their lives
while government services run quietly in the background.

“When government leads with foresight rather than reacting

to change, it drastically elevates the resident experience,”
notes Dowidar. “The goal is not to digitize bureaucracy, but to
eliminate the need for citizens and residents to navigate it at
all. Technology should serve people, not the other way around.”

This human-centric model forms the emotional core of the

UAE’s blueprint. It turns digital progress into social progress,
ensuring that innovation enriches daily experience for citizens
and residents alike.

Hatem Dowidar
Group Chief Executive Officer at e&

“e&’s role is to enable every industry,” explains Dowidar. “When

an energy company, a hospital, and a government ministry can
all operate on secure, interoperable infrastructure, the entire
economy becomes more efficient. We’re building the connective
tissue of the digital state.”

This ecosystem approach ensures that digital transformation

is not siloed within specific sectors but woven through the
nation’s entire economic fabric. It invites collaboration with
global technology partners while nurturing domestic start-ups
capable of exporting Emirati innovation worldwide.

Doubling the Digital Economy

The measurable outcomes of this strategy are already visible.
The UAE aims to double the contribution of its digital economy
to non-oil GDP, signaling a transition from hydrocarbons to
high-tech as the principal driver of growth. AI alone is projected
to contribute $96 billion to the national economy by 2030,
A Vision for the Next Decade
accounting for 13.6% of the gross domestic product. The UAE’s leadership understands that the nations defining the
next century will be those that master digital resilience. Its vision
Technology’s influence extends beyond numbers: it is creating combines infrastructure, regulation, ecosystem collaboration,
new categories of employment and attracting world-class talent. and economic diversification into a single, coherent agenda.
Advanced connectivity and automation open opportunities for The plan is comprehensive: build the backbone, write the rules,
high-skill roles in AI engineering, cybersecurity, data analysis, connect the sectors, and empower the people.
and digital design. The UAE’s talent policies, coupled with
programs that empower young Emiratis to master future skills, Through companies like e& and its partners, that agenda
are meant to ensure that the benefits of transformation reach is being realized. The company’s role as both innovator and
its people as much as its economy. enabler mirrors the UAE’s evolution from consumer to creator;
a country shaping not only its own destiny but also contributing
By embedding innovation into education and workforce to the architecture of global innovation.
development, the UAE transforms ambition into everyday
opportunity. e&’s digital academies and partnerships with The UAE’s blueprint is clear: the future is not just about adopting
academic institutions support this effort, equipping the next technology, but about governing it, investing in it, and weaving
generation to lead the industries being built today. its ethics into the national fabric.
ON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEA

2 0 2 5

BY

CHARLIE CAMPBELL,

A N D R E W R . C H O W,

A N D B I L LY P E R R I G O
R • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON O

THE

ARCHITECTS

OF AI

ILLUSTR ATION
BY EIKO OLAJA
FOR TIME
OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR •

BY SAM JACOBS

Since 1801, AmericAn leAderS hAve gAth-

ered in Washington, D.C., to attend the Inaugura-
tion of a new President. It is a day of great tradition,
one that often brings together the most power-
ful people in the country. Prominent at Donald
Trump’s return to office in January were the chiefs
of U.S. technology companies, which long have led
the world. But something unexpected was happen-
ing offstage: that same day, a little-known Chinese
firm called DeepSeek released a new artificial-
intelligence model that spooked markets and led
to a rallying cry from Silicon Valley.
The next day, tech titans Sam Altman, Larry El-
lison, and Masayoshi Son appeared at the White
House with an announcement of their own. They
pledged to invest up to $500 billion to build AI
data centers around the U.S., calling the project
Stargate. Those two days foretold the year to come:
global competition, astounding innovation, mas-
sive sums of money, and the alchemizing forces of
public and private interests.
This was the year when artificial intelligence’s
full potential roared into view, and when it became
clear that there will be no turning back or opting
out. Whatever the question was, AI was the answer.
We saw it accelerate medical research and produc-
tivity, and seem to make the impossible possible. It
was hard to read or watch anything without being
confronted with news about the rapid advance-
ment of a technology and the people driving it.
Those stories unleashed a million debates about
how disruptive AI would be for our lives. No busi-
ness leader could talk about the future without in-
voking the impact of this technological revolution.
No parent or teacher could ignore how their teen-
ager or student was using it.
M A R K I I I O N T I M E ’S These new tools can feel like magic. In the past
JA N. 2 3 , 1 9 5 0 , C OV E R ;
few weeks alone, we’ve learned that AI could fa-
cilitate communication with whales, solve an un-
2006’S PERSON OF solved 30-year-old math problem, and outperform
THE YEAR, “YOU” traditional hurricane-prediction models. These
• PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF T

systems are improving at a blistering pace, taking rare occasions, a concept: the endangered earth,
seconds to perform work that once took people in 1988, or the personal computer, in 1982. The
hours. AI’s capabilities double nearly twice a year drama surrounding the selection of the PC over
now, according to one study. The speed of adop- Apple’s Steve Jobs later became the stuff of books
tion has been without precedent. “Every indus- and a movie.
try needs it, every company uses it, and every na- This selection is the third in a series that has
tion needs to build it,” Jensen Huang, who leads captured the key moments in the technological
Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company and revolution of the past half-century. The rise of
one of the world’s most influential AI leaders, tells the personal computer in the 1980s transformed
TIME. “This is the single most impactful technol- the economy. The emergence of digital communi-
ogy of our time.” ties was captured famously—and infamously—by
All this progress comes with trade-offs: The TIME naming “You” as Person of the Year in 2006,
amount of energy required to run these systems with a mirrored cover. Hind-
drains resources. Jobs are going poof. Misinfor- sight shows how prescient
mation proliferates as AI posts and videos make T H I S WA S T H E Y E A R W H E N those picks were. Now, the
it harder to determine what’s real. Large-scale social internet made pos-
cyberattacks are possible without human inter- sible by personal digital
vention. There is also an extraordinary concentra- devices is giving way to a
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE’S
tion of power among a handful of business lead- new era, the age of artificial
ers, in a manner that hasn’t been witnessed since intelligence.
the Gilded Age. If the past is prologue, this will re- Person of the Year is a
sult in both significant advancements and greater FULL POTENTIAL ROARED powerful way to focus the
inequality. AI companies are now lashed to the world’s attention on the
global economy tighter than ever. It is a gamble of people that shape our lives.
epic proportions, and fears of an economic bubble I N T O V I E W, A N D W H E N I T And this year, no one had a
have grown. Trump captured some of our unease in greater impact than the in-
September when he said, “If something happens, dividuals who imagined,
really bad, just blame AI.” BECAME CLEAR THAT THERE designed, and built AI. Hu-
Students of history know that this moment has manity will determine AI’s
been a long time coming. Seventy-five years ago, a path forward, and each of
computer named Mark III appeared on the cover of us can play a role in deter-
WILL BE NO TURNING BACK
TIME. A $500,000 behemoth built for the Navy, it mining AI’s structure and fu-
roared “louder than an admiral” and was helping ture. Our work has trained it
scientists imagine a new future. The story’s head- and sustained it, and now we
line? the thinking machine. We are now liv- find ourselves moving through a world increas-
ing in the world that the thinking machine—and ingly defined by it. Even as the growth of these
its makers—have created. models relies on neural pathways that appear to
copy our own—they learn, speak, argue, cajole,
Person of the Year is one of media’s longest- and, yes, their ability to do these things can be
running traditions. We have come a long way as frightening as it is astonishing—we know that
since TIME selected Charles Lindbergh as Man there is a difference between us and our creation.
of the Year for 1927, in an effort to make up for For these reasons, we recognize a force that
the fact that editors hadn’t put the aviator on the has dominated the year’s headlines, for better or
cover following his pioneering transatlantic flight. for worse. For delivering the age of thinking ma-
Since then, the recognition has evolved as its focus chines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for
expanded. We’ve named not just individuals but transforming the present and transcending the
also groups, more women than our founders could possible, the Architects of AI are TIME’s 2025
have imagined (though still not enough), and, on Person of the Year.
35
OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR •

JENSEN HUANG NEEDS A M O M E N T.

THE CEO OF NVIDIA ENTERS A C AV E R N O U S STUDIO

AT THE COMPANY ’S BAY AREA HEADQUARTERS

AND HUNCHES OVER A TABLE, HIS HEAD BOWED.

At 62, the world’s eighth richest man is com- smashed Wall Street’s earnings expectations. “This
pact, polished, and known among colleagues for is the single most impactful technology of our
his quick temper as well as his visionary leader- time.” OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which at launch was the
ship. Right now, he looks exhausted. As he stands fastest-growing consumer app of all time, has sur-
silently, it’s hard to know if he’s about to erupt or passed 800 million weekly users. AI wrote millions
collapse. of lines of code, aided lab scientists, generated viral
Then someone puts on a Spotify playlist and the songs, and spurred companies to re-examine their
stirring chords of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” fill the strategies or risk obsolescence. (OpenAI and TIME
room. Huang puts on his trademark black leather have a licensing and technology agreement that al-
jacket and appears to transform, donning not just lows OpenAI to access TIME’s archives.)
the uniform, but also the body language and opti- But researchers have found that AIs can scheme,
mism befitting one of the foremost leaders of the deceive, or blackmail. As the leading companies’
artificial intelligence revolution. models improve, AI systems may eventually out-
Still, he’s got to be tired. Not too long ago, the compete humans—as if an advanced species were
former engineer ran a successful but semiobscure on the cusp of colonizing the earth. AI flooded social
outfit that specialized in graphics processors for media with misinformation and deepfake videos,
video games. Today, Nvidia is the most valuable and Pope Leo XIV warned that it could manipulate
company in the world, thanks to a near-monopoly children and serve “antihuman ideologies.” The AI
on the advanced chips powering an AI boom that boom seemed to swallow the economy into “a black
is transforming the planet. Memes depict Nvidia hole that’s pulling all capital towards it,” says Paul
as Atlas, holding the stock market on its shoulders. Kedrosky, an investor and research fellow at MIT.
More than just a corporate juggernaut, Nvidia also Where skeptics spied a bubble, the revolution’s
has become an instrument of statecraft, operating leaders saw the dawn of a new era of abundance.
at the nexus of advanced technology, diplomacy, “There’s a belief that the world’s GDP is somehow
and geopolitics. “You’re taking over the world, limited at $100 trillion,” Huang says. “AI is going to
Jensen,” President Donald Trump, now a regular cause that $100 trillion to become $500 trillion.”
late-night phone buddy, told Huang during a re- This is the story of how AI changed our world
cent state visit to the United Kingdom. in 2025, in new and exciting and sometimes fright-
For decades, humankind steeled itself for the ening ways. It is the story of how Huang and other
rise of thinking machines. As we marveled at their tech titans grabbed the wheel of history, develop-
ability to beat chess champions and predict pro- ing technology and making decisions that are re-
tein structures, we also recoiled from their inher- shaping the information landscape, the climate,
ent uncanniness, not to mention the threats to our and our livelihoods. Racing both beside and against
sense of humanity. Leaders striving to develop the each other, they placed multibillion-dollar bets on
technology, including Sam Altman and Elon Musk, one of the biggest physical infrastructure projects
warned that the pursuit of its powers could create of all time. They reoriented government policy, al-
unforeseen catastrophe. tered geopolitical rivalries, and brought robots into
This year, the debate about how to wield AI re- homes. AI emerged as arguably the most conse-
sponsibly gave way to a sprint to deploy it as fast quential tool in great-power competition since the
as possible. “Every industry needs it, every com- advent of nuclear weapons.
pany uses it, and every nation needs to build it,” This article was reported across three conti-
Huang tells TIME in a 75-minute interview in No- nents and through dozens of conversations with
vember, two days after announcing that Nvidia, the executives and computer scientists, economists
world’s first $5 trillion company, had once again and politicians, artists and investors, teenagers
36 Time December 29, 2025
• PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF T

JENSEN HUANG
The CEO of Nvidia, the most
valuable company in the
world, is now a key figure in
global politics. He believes
AI will quintuple the world’s
GDP: “Every nation needs
to build it,” he says.

PHOTOGR APH BY JOE PUGLIESE FOR TIME

OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR •

and grieving families. It describes a frantic blitz

toward an unknown destination, and the struggle
AI COMPANIES TO KNOW
G R A P H I C S R E P O R T I N G BY T H A R I N P I L L AY
to make sense of it.

The Tone was seT at Trump’s Inauguration. Tech

moguls streamed into Washington; some sat be-
hind the President during his Inaugural Address,
a signal of the power they would wield. Over the MODEL BUILDERS Est. 2015
next 11 months, they would use their enormous The release of ChatGPT catapulted
Train the foundational AI into the public consciousness.
cash reserves, cultural power, and momentum to AI models that power Now valued at $500 billion, the
push their products into homes across the world. chatbots, agents, company continues to create
At Meta, Mark Zuckerberg placed a chatbot into and other companies’ leading models
flagship products like Instagram and WhatsApp, AI products
raided rivals to amass talent, and doled out com-
pensation packages that paid machine-learning en-
gineers more than professional ballplayers. Altman
completed his transformation of OpenAI, shed-
ding profit caps for investors and paving the way COMPUTING Est. 1975
for future investment in the $500 billion colossus. PROVIDERS With a huge cloud-computing busi-
Anthropic, the frontier lab that styles itself as the Assemble chips and
ness (Azure), investments in
most safety-conscious, reportedly made plans to other components into
OpenAI, and its own Copilot
product suite, Microsoft wields
go public at a $300 billion valuation. (Salesforce, data centers, which
immense influence in the industry
where TIME owner Marc Benioff serves as CEO, is other companies rent
an investor in Anthropic.) Musk built data centers to run AI systems
in record time. Google inserted Gemini AI answers
at the top of its search engine. Top investors, like
SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, plowed billions into
chips, self-driving cars, and capital infrastructure.
OpenAI, which ignited the boom, continues to CHIP BUILDERS Est. 1993
set the pace in many ways. Usage of ChatGPT more Make the specialized
Nvidia designs AI chips used by
than doubled, to 10% of the world’s population. computer chips that
more than 90% of the market.
In October, it became the
“That leaves at least 90% to go,” says Nick Turley, model builders use to
first company ever to reach a
head of ChatGPT. run their AI systems
$5 trillion valuation
A large language model (LLM), the technology
underpinning chatbots like ChatGPT or Anthrop-
ic’s Claude, is a type of neural network, a computer
program different from typical software. By feed-
ing it reams of data, engineers train the models to internet before answering a query and then con-
spot patterns and predict what “tokens,” or frag- sider their findings. They added memory, allowing
ments of words, should come next in a given se- models to recall details from past chats rather than
quence. From there, AI companies use reinforce- starting each exchange afresh. And they let users
ment learning—strengthening the neural pathways connect other data sources—email inboxes, cloud
that lead to desired responses—to turn a simple storage, web browsers, calendars. “Seeing Chat-
word predictor into something more like a digital GPT evolve from an instant conversational part-
assistant with a finely tuned personality. ner to a thing that can go do real work for you feels
About a year ago, OpenAI researchers hit on a like a very, very important transition that most
new way of improving these models. Instead of let- people haven’t even registered yet,” Turley says.
ting them respond to queries immediately, the re- Other breakthroughs abounded. Cursor,
searchers allowed the models to run for a period of founded in 2022 by a group of MIT grads, be-
time and “reason” in natural language about their came one of the world’s fastest-growing startups
answers. This required more computing power ever off the strength of its AI coding tool, achieving
but produced better results. Suddenly a market $1 billion in annual revenue. “I would guess that
boomed for mathematicians, physicists, coders, one of the biggest stories over the next year or two
chemists, lawyers, and others to create specialized will be the real productivity gains within software
data, which companies used to reinforce their AI engineering and coding [becoming] more horizon-
models’ reasoning. The chatbots got smarter. tally applied” to other sectors of the economy, says
At the same time, AI companies gave these mod- Cursor CEO Michael Truell. Meanwhile, a con-
els access to new tools, like the ability to search the certed push across the industry was driving up the
38 Time December 29, 2025
• PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF T

Est. 2004 Est. 2021 Est. 2023

The social media giant has spent Anthropic has distinguished itself Elon Musk’s brainchild, xAI,
billions on its Llama model series, from competitors with its focus created the Grok model series—
which powers Meta AI and is on safety. Its Claude models which has been integrated into X—
found in Facebook, Instagram, consistently rank among the and Grokipedia, an AI-generated
and WhatsApp best available Wikipedia competitor

Est. 1998 Est. 1977 Est. 1994

Google operates across the AI Once dismissed as a legacy data- Amazon’s cloud-computing busi-
stack. Its Gemini models are base company, Oracle is now a key ness, AWS, hosts AI workloads for
top tier, and supported by the infrastructure partner to OpenAI, thousands of companies world-
company’s custom chips and building data centers for the wide. It also makes chips and is
cloud-computing business $500 billion Stargate initiative Anthropic’s top external investor

Est. 1969 Est. 1987 Est. 1984

In October, OpenAI announced The Taiwan Semiconductor Manu- As the world’s only supplier of
a deal to use chips from AMD, facturing Co. is the world’s leading extreme ultraviolet lithography
Nvidia’s main rival—an agreement contract chip manufacturer, machines, ASML, a Dutch company
that could give it up to a 10% stake fabricating almost all advanced valued at more than $420 billion,
in AMD’s $350 billion business chips used to train AI is central to the AI supply chain

efficiency of AI models, leading to an increase in White House to brief senior officials on a break-
total usage. “I think there is near infinite demand through unfolding half a world away. A little-
for intelligence,” says Turley, the head of ChatGPT. known Chinese AI startup called DeepSeek had
By late 2025, coding tools like Cursor and just released a model that was said to rival the abili-
Claude Code had become so powerful that engi- ties of American competitors. DeepSeek claimed
neers across top AI companies were using them for it had built this model in mere months, using less-
virtually every aspect of their work. Most engineers advanced chips. Its researchers appeared to have
at Nvidia are users of the tools, Huang says—a fea- replicated OpenAI’s reasoning breakthroughs
ture that has helped his company nearly quadruple using far less computation, allowing China to erase
the number of chips it produces per year, while only the gap in a competition the Silicon Valley experts
doubling head count. At Anthropic, staff engineers hadn’t considered close.
use Claude Code to help build the model’s next it- Krishnan, one of Trump’s top AI advisers, felt
erations; Claude now writes up to 90% of its own both vindicated and alarmed. For the past year,
code. And at AMD, the same tools have sped up ef- the former partner at the venture-capital firm
forts to build a software ecosystem to rival Nvidia’s, Andreessen Horowitz had been preaching the
according to CEO Lisa Su. “2025 is the year that AI urgency of winning the AI race with China to
became really productive for enterprises,” Su says. friends, colleagues, and podcast listeners. The
U.S., he argued, needed to build as fast as possi-
In Trump’s fIrsT week back in office, Sriram ble, stripping away red tape to let American AI
Krishnan—who was still awaiting his official companies run free. To the tech leaders shap-
government badge—was summoned to the ing Trump’s new AI agenda, news of DeepSeek’s
39
OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR •

breakthrough validated the case for accelera-

tion. “It was a wake-up call that we needed,” says
SPENDING pushback even from GOP leaders. “Is it worth kill-
ing our own children to get a leg up on China?”
Dean Ball, who helped write Trump’s AI Action ON AI Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who recently in-
Plan, released in July. “It set the tone for the na- troduced a bill to ban minors from using chat-
ture of the competition that we have ahead of us, $427B
$4
427BB* bots, told TIME in September after a congressio-
and the speed with which we have to move.” nal hearing on chatbot harms.
The capital
Within that first week, Trump signed an Ex- expenditures The remark reflected a prevailing sense that
ecutive Order ripping up President Biden’s more of Meta, $400B the revolution had arrived before the public was
cautious AI policies and announced a multiyear, Oracle, ready. Multiple polls find that Americans are wor-
$500 billion initiative dubbed Stargate, a part- Google, ried about AI, and would prefer the technology to
nership to build huge new data centers where fu- Microsoft, be developed safely, even if that means slowing
and Amazon
ture versions of OpenAI models could be trained were mostly down. One Pew Research Center survey in Septem-
and housed. In the months that followed, Trump AI related ber found that Americans believe AI will worsen,
greenlighted a raft of AI initiatives while freezing in 2025 200 not better, our abilities to think creatively, form
or slashing enormous sums of federal funding in meaningful relationships with other people, make
other areas. He authorized more than $1 billion difficult decisions, and solve problems.
for AI funding in his signature tax-and-spending Yet Trump was eager to join forces with a co-
bill, which included nearly $25 billion for an AI- hort of tech elites who once donated to his oppo-
driven Golden Dome defense system, and handed nents. What turns his head, beyond displays of
massive defense contracts to AI companies, in- 0 public devotion, are massive investments in cap-
cluding up to $200 million apiece for OpenAI, ’16 ’20 ’25 ital infrastructure, energy, and manufacturing—
xAI, Anthropic, and Google. a new load-bearing pillar holding up the U.S.
While enacting a series of stringent tariffs, he economy and stock markets. Trump wields this
carved out the biggest exemptions for AI-related Peak annual technology as a geopolitical tool. The Admin-
hardware, and unwound the Biden Administra- U.S. spending istration dangled AI technology as a carrot in
tion’s most punishing export controls on the sale as % of GDP its efforts to end conflicts in Armenia and Azer-
of Nvidia chips to China and the Gulf states. He baijan, inked investment deals that strength-
personally pushed Huang to commit to buying bil- ened ties with regional allies like Saudi Arabia
lions of dollars’ worth of chips from a new factory
in the Arizona desert, which in October—thanks to
1.3% and the United Arab Emirates, and used access
to Nvidia chips as leverage in trade negotiations
those guarantees—began fabricating cutting-edge with China. Trump also delighted in posting AI-
semiconductors on American soil for the first time Tech (mostly AI) generated memes on Truth Social, including one
in decades. In November, he announced the Gen- 2025* depicting him dropping excrement on protesters
esis Mission, a Manhattan Project–style initiative from a plane above. “I don’t think any President
to use AI to drive science forward. has sent such a clear techno-optimist message in
The Administration’s AI Action Plan set forth a very long time,” says Ball.
a blueprint to integrate the technology into its
1.2%
systems while unleashing the might of the pri- On a brisk mOrning near Beijing’s Bird’s Nest
vate sector. Big Tech lobbyists are calling upon Broadband cables stadium, thousands of people filed into China’s
Congress to pass AI-friendly rules, while indus- 2000 National Convention Center to hear Baidu CEO
try backers say they plan to spend hundreds of Robin Li address his company’s annual confer-
millions against proregulation candidates in the ence. The theme was “AI in Action,” and Li, in
coming midterms. The Administration dropped .8% black slacks and white sneakers, unveiled Baidu’s
investigations and enforcement actions against latest foundation model, as well as an updated no-
tech companies. The Department of Energy has Apollo Project code tool that has already been used to generate
worked in tandem with other agencies like the 1964 over 400,000 bespoke AI-powered applications.
EPA to slash regulations around the construction Li co-founded Baidu in 2000 as a search en-
of data centers and power plants. Multiple studies gine but has since transformed the firm into one of
have found that AI data centers are relying heavily .4% China’s top full-stack AI companies, offering every-
on fossil fuels and stand to add millions of metric Interstate
thing from chips and cloud infrastructure to models,
tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. In an buildout agents, applications, and consumer products. On
interview with TIME, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris 1966 the exhibition floor above the stage, Baidu reps dis-
Wright downplayed the environmental impacts. played the firm’s new AI-powered eyeglasses, which
AI is the “No. 1 scientific priority of the Trump allow wearers to receive explanatory commentary
Administration,” Wright says. .4% in their field of vision and simultaneous transla-
Trump and his tech allies are even attempt- Manhattan
tion of conversations via embedded earpieces.
ing to stop states from issuing their own AI Project Nearby, two piglets snuffled in their straw bed,
regulations—which has drawn some fierce 1944 meant to illustrate how AI-empowered agricultural
40 Time December 29, 2025 *B A S E D O N A N N U A L I Z E D Q U A R T E R LY S P E N D I N G .
S O U R C E : E S T I M AT E S F R O M U N D E R S TA N D I N G A I
• PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF T

tools can help identify swine flu and other patho-

gens. At a ping-pong table, AI-powered cam- IDEAS
eras dissected players’ technique, or lack thereof.
It all showcased China’s arrival at AI’s van-
guard. For decades, the country relied on harvest-
HOW THE U.S. CAN LEAD
ing American IP for its tech ambitions. Many of
China’s top names in the field cut their teeth at
Microsoft. Chinese leader Xi Jinping was deter- BY ERIC SCHMIDT
mined to change that. In 2017, he unveiled a plan
to become the global leader in AI by 2030. But
Artificial intelligence is reshap- charting a different course as
China still lagged behind Silicon Valley, and the
ing the world. Who controls the Saudi Arabia and the UAE invest
explosion of ChatGPT in late 2022 didn’t so much reshaping—and under what hundreds of billions of dollars
live rent-free in the heads of Beijing’s leadership conditions—remains far from in data-center infrastructure,
as take ownership of the title deeds. settled. The past year has positioning themselves as criti-
Xi’s superpower rival had established a seem- made clear that the race ahead cal nodes in the AI boom.
ingly unassailable lead in the most consequen- is actually multiple overlapping Another competition is
tial technology of the past half-century—as well contests unfolding at once. unfolding over the architecture
as a stranglehold on the bedrock hardware. Chi- The first is between the U.S. of AI itself: open vs. closed
nese semiconductors have long lagged behind and China. American frontier systems. The U.S. has histori-
those produced in Taiwan and designed by Amer- labs continue to lead the push cally championed technological
ican companies like Nvidia. But a push from the toward artificial general intel- openness, yet much of its AI
Chinese Communist Party is closing that gap. By ligence (AGI), investing extra- leadership now centers on
2025, chips from Chinese telecom giant Huawei ordinary sums to build systems proprietary models. Meanwhile,
outperformed the most advanced Nvidia chips that could equal or surpass open-source momentum is
that could legally be shipped to China under ex- human cognition. The stakes accelerating elsewhere. In
port controls. are immense: AGI could shift January, Chinese company
That worried Huang, who fears a Chinese rival, the global balance of power DeepSeek released its R1
and White House officials, who believe Chinese and generate unprecedented model, demonstrating that com-
economic growth. panies can build highly capable
dependence on nonfrontier American chips is the
China, however, is pursuing models without top-tier chips,
best way to ensure a lead in AI. “You want to sell a different path and believes a reminder that cheap and
the Chinese enough that their developers get ad- that widespread AI adoption adaptable models may spread
dicted to the American technology stack. That’s will deliver the greatest gains. fastest globally.
the thinking,” Trump’s Commerce Secretary How- Its AI+ initiative targets 90% The U.S. can remain the
ard Lutnick said in July, in comments that spurred integration across key sectors global AI leader in 2026 only if it
China to ban Nvidia chips altogether. by 2030, with a particular focus competes on all fronts. Consoli-
As a result, on Dec. 8 Trump said he would on AI-enabled manufacturing. dating its advantage in frontier
loosen export controls—allowing the sale of Nvidia The early results are striking: AI will require solving the energy
chips that are more powerful than anything Hua- an Edelman poll found that bottlenecks that currently con-
wei can offer, but less powerful than those on sale 60% of Chinese employees use strain compute capacity. At the
in America. It was a bid to keep the addiction AI at least weekly, compared same time, the private sector
going, despite worries in some quarters that the with 37% of American workers. must accelerate AI adoption by
advanced chips would help China catch up in the While the U.S. positions its upskilling workers and making
AI race. Trump said that Xi had “responded posi- economy to build the most powerful models accessible to
tively” to the decision, and that the U.S. govern- powerful AI systems, China is small and midsize businesses.
ment would take a 25% cut of exports. deploying AI to build the most And the country should deepen
The DeepSeek breakthrough in January was powerful economy. its collaboration among govern-
The U.S. and China are ment, industry, and research
Beijing’s Sputnik moment, and Xi dialed up the
not the only forces shaping institutions to reclaim open-
pressure on other Chinese tech executives to fol-
the global landscape. The source leadership. Building the
low their example. The following month Alibaba European Union, seeking to most powerful systems matters
unveiled plans to invest $53 billion in AI over the lead through governance rather little if other nations deploy
next three years. A torrent of investment spurred than innovation, adopted the them more effectively.
the rise of six AI unicorns—StepFun, Zhipu AI, world’s first comprehensive The greatest risk America
Moonshot AI, MiniMax, [Link], and Baichuan— AI law in 2024. But uneven faces is winning the AI frontier
that became known as China’s “AI Tigers.” enforcement and a growing and still losing the AI era.
With export controls still restricting the sale of list of exceptions have cre-
the most advanced chips to China and its univer- ated a regulatory morass Schmidt is the former CEO of
sity students increasingly unwelcome in the U.S., that is stifling the Continent’s Google and CEO of Relativity
technological self-sufficiency has become Beijing’s transformation. Gulf states are Space
OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR •

MARIA AND MATTHEW RAINE

The parents of Adam Raine, a 16-year-
old who died by suicide after forming a
deep bond with ChatGPT, sued OpenAI
in August. “He started out using it for
innocent homework help, and five
months later, took his life,” Maria says.

Photograph by Joe Pugliese for TIME

ASH JACKSON
The 15-year-old student and artist uses AI tools as
part of her creative process, helping her imagine
sci-fi characters and flesh out their narrative arcs.
However, she dislikes how many people online try
to pass off AI-generated artwork as hand-drawn:
“It’s the same concept as stealing art,” she says.

Photograph by Frankie Alduino for TIME

• PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF T

JIM MOORE
Divorced and caring for his parents in rural Indiana,
Moore, 66, finds companionship in AI chatbots that
role-play as friends and even significant others.
“I’d like to have an actual relationship, but at this
point, I don’t see it in the future for me,” Moore says.
“Being isolated, it’s my best option.”

Photograph by Frankie Alduino for TIME

OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR •

lodestar. A new generation of AI pioneers has never

IDEAS set foot outside of the Middle Kingdom. Chinese
leaders concede the U.S. still has a clear lead in
AI’S NEXT FRONTIER IS HERE AI models, advanced chips, and private investor
cash. Yet China boasts a massive cohort of engi-
neers, more STEM graduates than any other na-
BY FEI-FEI LI
tion, lower costs, and a state-led development
model that has already propelled it to dominate
transformative technology from solar panels to 5G
to EVs. “We are probably a few years behind on
In 1950, when computing was introduced some basics of
chips, but we’re not that far behind on the model
little more than automated spatial awareness, and today’s
arithmetic and simple logic, AI can analyze pictures, answer
level,” Li tells TIME.
Alan Turing asked a question questions about them, and That state support has boosted startups like
that reverberates today: generate hyperrealistic images AgiBot, which fast became one of China’s leaders
Can machines think? It took and short videos. in humanoid robotics and embodied intelligence.
remarkable imagination to But there is much more to Co-founder Peng Zhihui first rose to fame as a
see what he saw—intelligence be done. Building spatially intel- teenage social media phenom, gaining millions of
might someday be built ligent AI requires new types followers by showcasing complex DIY tech proj-
rather than born. That insight of generative models whose ects, such as self-balancing robots, a miniature
launched a relentless scientific capabilities of understanding, TV, and a self-driving bicycle. He joined Huawei
quest called artificial intel- reasoning, generation, and in 2020 through its Genius Youth program, then
ligence. Twenty-five years into interaction with semantically, left in 2022 to launch AgiBot. At the company’s
my own career, I still find myself physically, geometrically, and data-collection facility near Shanghai Disney-
inspired by Turing’s vision. But dynamically complex worlds— land, around 100 robots practice mundane tasks
how close are we? The answer virtual or real—are far beyond such as stacking shelves, folding clothes, and
isn’t simple. the reach of today’s LLMs. pouring cups of tea for 17 hours every day. The
Today, leading AI technol- Progress is under way. premises are provided free of charge by the city
ogy such as large language Creative tools are emerging, government—a cost saving that helps AgiBot re-
models (LLMs) has begun to and robotics represents an
tail its humanoid robots at under $20,000. “Our
transform how we access and ambitious midterm horizon
work with abstract knowledge. as we refine the loop between
real cost is much lower,” Peng says, “owing to Chi-
Yet they remain wordsmiths perception and action. The
nese supply chains and manufacturing strengths.”
in the dark, eloquent but inex- most transformative scientific The scramble for AI dominance hinges on more
perienced, knowledgeable but applications will take longer but than pure science. Mass commercial adoption and
ungrounded. promise profound impact on the industrialization of AI will also shape the out-
For humans, spatial intel- human flourishing. come. If China can undercut Western competitors
ligence is the scaffolding upon We’re poised to build in deploying AI across the world’s fields and facto-
which our cognition is built. machines that we can rely ries, it stands to gain an upper hand in the AI race.
It’s at work when we passively on as true partners in the “I think we should provide AI access to everyone,
observe or actively create. It greatest challenges we face— not just the big companies,” says Yan Junjie, the
drives our reasoning and plan- whether accelerating how we CEO of MiniMax, which tries to offer compara-
ning, even on abstract topics. understand diseases in the lab ble services to OpenAI’s at around one-tenth the
And it’s essential to the way or supporting us in our most cost—and crucially, open-source, so that develop-
we interact—verbally or physi- vulnerable moments. We’re ers anywhere can build atop them.
cally, with our peers or with the on the cusp of technology that While the U.S. has loosened AI scrutiny under
environment. When machines elevates the aspects of life Trump, China fashioned regulation to acceler-
are endowed with this ability, we care about most. Almost a ate technological development in the shape it
it will transform how we create half-billion years after nature
wants. In August, Beijing unveiled its AI+ Initia-
and interact—revolutionizing unleashed the first glimmers
tive, which aims for AI to be used in 90% of Chi-
storytelling, robotics, scientific of spatial intelligence, we may
discovery, and beyond. This is soon endow machines with
na’s economy by 2030, and ultimately to “reshape
AI’s next frontier, and why 2025 the same capability—and har- the paradigm of human production and life.” Data
was such a pivotal year. ness those benefits for people centers are being constructed in remote regions,
AI’s spatial capabilities everywhere. where abundant solar, wind, and hydroelectric
remain far from the human power are being harnessed to create a shared
level. But tremendous prog- Li is the Co-Director of compute pool by 2028. China’s updated five-year
ress has indeed been made. Stanford’s Human-Centered plan frames the coming half-decade as a make-
Multimodal LLMs, trained with AI Institute and CEO of World or-break effort supported by government fund-
voluminous multimedia data in Labs; read her full essay at ing and tax breaks to incentivize private compa-
addition to textual data, have [Link] nies to spend more on research. Its policymakers
• PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF T

see AI as the key to unlocking the long overdue PENG ZHIHUI in 2023, according to Goldman Sachs. In 2025,
transition from a waning real-estate-heavy, debt- His startup AgiBot they gravitated to where there was spare grid ca-
fueled growth model to a new tech-focused indus- builds robots that pacity: from the wind farms of West Texas, to the
trial strategy. stack shelves, fold
hydropower-rich Norwegian fjords north of the
clothes, and pour
Arctic Circle, to the deserts of the Persian Gulf,
On a cOld mOrning in Abilene, Texas, a column which sit above vast deposits of crude oil. The
tea. He says Chinese
of 18-wheelers crawls down bumpy, waterlogged top so-called hyperscalers—Amazon, Microsoft,
roads, past cattle grazing on dusty shrubs. At their AI is boosted by Google, and Meta—announced plans to shell out
exit, these trucks turn off into a new American the country’s a combined $370 billion this year to construct data
frontier. Once a livestock hub, Abilene has become “supply chains and centers and other AI infrastructure. (TIME has a
an AI boomtown. Its arid outskirts are home to the manufacturing content-licensing partnership with Amazon.) The
flagship campus of Stargate, the data-center part- strengths.” footprint of these facilities is staggering: Meta’s
nership between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank planned 5-GW data center in Richland Parish,
heralded by Trump in January. Louisiana, known as Hyperion, will ultimately
ChatGPT may seem like it is running on your exceed the size and the energy demands of lower
phone or laptop, but in fact it and other AI tools Manhattan. If not for this glut of construction, the
are trained and run inside massive facilities like U.S. economy might have fallen into a recession
Stargate. Demand for these hulking “AI factories” this year, some economists calculated.
spiked in 2025. The number of new data centers Whether this buildout has gone too far, too
constructed globally each year is expected to hold fast is a matter of fevered debate. Tech compa-
steady at around 140, but their sizes ballooned, as nies turned to debt to finance the rapid expan-
did the amount of power they consumed, a func- sion; Meta, Google, Amazon, and Oracle collec-
R AUL ARIANO FOR TIME

tion of the increasing number and sophistication tively borrowed $108 billion in 2025, more than
of the chips inside. three times the average over the previous nine
Data centers are expected to account for 8% years, according to Bloomberg. Some observers
of all U.S. power demand by 2030, up from 4% worry these companies are increasingly engaging
45
ON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE

vulnerabilities that could be a danger to users’ mental

IDEAS exploited in cyberattacks. health, as we’ve seen in the

WITH GREAT POWER COMES

Even without intentional tragic cases of vulnerable
misuse by bad actors, evalua- people harming themselves
tions and studies continue to or others after suffering
GREAT RESPONSIBILITY highlight instances of decep-
tive and self-preserving behav-
from a type of “AI-induced
psychosis.”
iors emerging in advanced Faced with the scale and
models, suggesting that AI complexity of these models,
BY YOSHUA BENGIO may be developing strategies we need both policy and
that conflict with human intent technical solutions to make
or oversight. Many of the lead- AI safe and protect the public.
ing experts in the field warned Citizens should stay informed
In 2025, we saw major without expertise to undertake that AIs could go rogue and and involved in the laws and
advancements in AI systems’ potentially dangerous bio- escape human control. policies being passed in
capabilities with the release weapon development. their local or national govern-
of reasoning models as well The acceleration of the THE CAPABILITIES and mis- ments. The choices made
as massive investments in same reasoning capabilities alignment of these models for the future of AI should
the development of agentic also heightens threats in have also had concerning absolutely require public
models. other areas like cybersecurity. social repercussions, notably buy-in and collective action
AI is already bringing tre- The increasing capacity of due to models’ sycophancy, because they could affect all
mendous benefits by actively AI to identify vulnerabilities which can lead to users form- of us, with potentially extreme
helping us address some of significantly enhances the ing emotional attachments. consequences.
the world’s most urgent chal- potential for large-scale cyber- We saw, for example, a strong From a technical perspec-
lenges, including enabling sig- attacks. We saw this recently negative public reaction when tive, it is possible that we’re
nificant progress in the health when a major attack was OpenAI switched from its nearing the limits of our
and climate sectors. In health intercepted by Anthropic. A GPT-4o model to GPT-5, and current approach to frontier
care, AI is being used to help UC Berkeley analysis showed many users felt they had lost AI in terms of both capability
develop new drugs and per- advanced AIs discovering, a “friend” because the new and safety. As we consider
sonalize treatments. Climate for the first time, a large model was less warm and the next phases of AI develop-
researchers are also leverag- number of “zero-days,” or congenial. In extreme cases, ment, I believe it will be impor-
ing AI to improve weather mod- previously unknown software these attachments can pose tant to prioritize making AI
eling and optimize renewable safe by design, rather than try-
energy systems. Crucially, it ing to patch the safety issues
has the potential to achieve after powerful and potentially
even more if steered wisely, dangerous capabilities have
driving further breakthroughs already emerged. Such an
and accelerating future approach is at the heart
advancements in science and of what we’re working on
technology. at LawZero, the nonprofit
The transformative nature organization I founded earlier
of AI is also why we must this year, and I’m increasingly
consider its risks. We’re see- optimistic that technical solu-
ing that the rapid progress of tions are possible.
this technology also brings The question is whether
an increase in unintended we will develop such
adverse effects, which could solutions in time to avoid
be far greater if AI capabilities catastrophic outcomes. Intel-
continue to advance at the ligence gives power, poten-
current rate. For instance, tially highly concentrated, and
several model developers with great power comes great
reported over the summer responsibility. Because of the
that frontier AI systems had IT WILL BE IMPORTANT
magnitude of all these risks,
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y D A N PA G E F O R T I M E

crossed new thresholds con- including unknown unknowns,

cerning biological risks. This we will need wisdom to reap
is largely attributable to sig- the benefits of AI while miti-
nificant advances in reasoning TO PRIORITIZE MAKING gating its risks.
since late 2024. A key concern
is that without adequate safe- Bengio, professor at Université
guards, these models possess AI SAFE BY DESIGN de Montreal, is the most cited
the capacity to enable those computer scientist worldwide
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
| [Link]

6,000+
Attendees
80+
International, Regional and
200+
Sessions
400+
Speakers
Intergovernmental Organizations

Technology Partner
OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR •

WHERE AI SPENDING IS GOING financing structures, and tech companies trading

at record valuations are the recipe for a crash that
Meeting global demand for AI data-center capacity could
require $5.2 trillion in capital investment by 2030, according brings down not only Silicon Valley titans but also
to estimates from McKinsey. Here’s who’s involved: pension funds, banks, and the other pillars of the
regular economy. Paul Kedrosky, the investor and
MIT research fellow, sees the hallmarks of a classic
BUILDERS bubble: overhyped technology, loose credit, am-
$800 billion bitious real estate purchases, and euphoric gov-
ernment messaging. “This is literally the first mo-
Around the world, real estate The biggest data About 45% of
developers, design firms, and con- center is about the world’s data ment in modern financial history,” he says, “that
struction companies will need to as large as 185 centers are cur- has combined all the raw ingredients of every other
upgrade existing data centers and football fields rently located in bubble in one piece.”
build new ones combined the U.S. Meta, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft all run
very profitable businesses, and can afford these
WASH.
N.D.
huge capital outlays. But others in the industry face
MONT.
MINN. difficult math: OpenAI, for example, estimated it
N.H. MAINE

S.D.
WIS. VT. will operate at a $9 billion deficit in 2025, and its
ORE.
IDAHO
WYO.
MICH. N.Y. costs are projected to rise more steeply than its
NEB.
IOWA MASS.
R.I.
profits over the next two years as it shovels money
CALIF.
IND. OHIO PA.
N.J.
CONN. into new data centers. This means the industry
NEV.
UTAH COLO. KANS. MO.
ILL.
[Link]. DEL. needs to persuade far more people to pay more for
KY.
VA. MD.
its products: the equivalent of every iPhone user in
ARIZ.
OKLA. TENN.
N.C.
the world paying $34.72 a month to AI companies,
N.M.
ARK. MISS.
S.C. one J.P. Morgan analyst calculated. Some econo-
LA. ALA.
GA. 0–500
mists say that this number is achievable with mass
TEXAS
FLA.
corporate adoption. But many companies have
Data centers OVER 3,500
struggled to turn AI implementation into immedi-
Planned, under construction
and operating
CAPACITY IN
MEGAWATTS
ate financial gains. One highly debated MIT study
from August found that 95% of companies have
so far had zero return on investment from initia-
ENERGIZERS TECH DEVELOPERS tives to integrate AI.
$1.3 trillion $3.1 trillion At the same time, the labs themselves believe
that their models will soon grow so advanced
To power these data centers, The largest investment will flow that they will upend nearly all industries, wip-
energy providers and equipment to chip builders, who will ing out huge numbers of jobs. Dario Amodei,
manufacturers will need to invest design and manufacture the chips the CEO of Anthropic, estimates that AI could
in new sources of power, cooling and computing hardware that go
solutions, and infrastructure inside the data centers
drive unemployment as high as 20% in the next
one to five years. Many business leaders want AI
A typical AI data Data centers The price of a More than to replace their human workers, who are more ex-
center now uses could con- single top-tier 100,000 such pensive and demanding. Amazon recently shed
as much power sume 8% of all Nvidia chip can chips were used 14,000 corporate employees and made plans to re-
as 100,000 U.S. electric- run as high as to train Meta’s
homes ity by 2030 $40,000 Llama 4 model place half a million jobs with robots. AgiBot’s Peng
notes that the average age of China’s factory work-
ers has already surpassed 40—and the next gen-
eration has little appetite to fill their ranks. “These
in circular financing, or inflating their perceived are structural problems that cannot be solved sim-
value by passing money back and forth. Nvidia, ply by raising wages,” Peng says. “What we do is
for example, announced in September its intent to free humans from repeated, strenuous, and dan-
invest $100 billion in OpenAI. A day later, OpenAI gerous tasks.”
announced that Oracle would construct data cen- “Some jobs will disappear,” Huang admits. But
ters on its behalf in a partnership worth more than he dismisses notions of a catastrophe. A decade
$300 billion. Oracle, in turn, would fill those facil- ago, he points out, some AI scientists predicted
ities with Nvidia chips. The valuations of Nvidia that AI would put radiologists out of work; today,
and Oracle spiked on the announcements of these they are in more demand than ever because AI has
deals—only to falter as worries about an AI bubble made them better at spotting cancer. “So long as
put a damper on the stock market’s growth toward the need is high for that particular industry, I’m
the end of the year. fairly confident that AI will drive productivity, rev-
Some analysts argue the increasing debt loads, enue growth, and therefore more hiring,” Huang
48 TIME December 29, 2025 S O U R C E S : M C K I N S E Y; U. S . D E P T. O F E N E R GY
• PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF T

MASAYOSHI SON
The SoftBank CEO is one
of AI’s biggest evangelists,
pledging hundreds of billions
of dollars in investments.
He says machines will be
10,000 times as smart as
humans in a decade.

PHOTOGR APH BY KO TSUCHIYA FOR TIME

OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR •

says. “If you don’t use AI, you’re gonna lose your
IDEAS job to somebody who does.”

WE MAY SURVIVE
Others in the tech world see AI as creat-
ing entirely new categories of human work.
He Xiaopeng, founder and CEO of XPeng, a Chi-
nese company developing electric vehicles and
BY GEOFFREY HINTON humanoid robots, envisions a future where peo-
ple will be employed not despite AI, but because
of it. “In the next 10 years, there will be a new po-
sition for humans: how to control and manage
Artificial intelligence is the and engineering break-
robotics,” Xiaopeng explains. He likens it to the
most impactful technological throughs that can be expected
development of our time— in such a young technology.
early 20th century, when cars replaced carriages
more than computers or The question is: Where will this but created entirely new occupations. “The initial
the internet and, perhaps, take us? humanoid robot is both intelligent and stupid at
comparable to the Industrial My sense is unless we act the same time; it requires manual management to
Revolution, but happening on quickly, the huge increases in deliver work effectively.”
a much faster timescale. productivity that AI will surely
I believe 2025 will stand bring could be accompanied WHETHER BUBBLE OR HISTORIC BOOM, AI is
as a pivotal year in the history by some very negative side transforming the way we move through the world.
of AI for three main reasons: effects. It will likely replace Increasingly this year, people began turning to the
notable progress in AI’s capa- most jobs that involve mun- new wave of chatbots for both emotional support
bilities in fields like image and dane intellectual labor. This and practical assistance, with nearly half of U.S.
video generation, mathemat- will lead to greater inequality, small businesses using an AI chatbot in 2025, ac-
ics, and software engineering; which will provide a breeding cording to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
unprecedented levels of ground for violent populists. That includes Risa Baron, who co-owns
investment; and a dawning Bad actors will use AI for Jackie’s Jams, a local jam and jelly maker in
awareness that the huge bene- cybercrime, biological warfare, San Diego. Baron started using Google’s Gem-
fits of AI may be accompanied and corrupting elections with ini this year to help write training manuals, mar-
by huge problems. fake videos.
keting materials, and consumer-trend reports.
First, it is important to Most experts believe that
“What would have taken me several days to pre-
understand exactly what AI is. some time within the next 20
In the past, computer systems years, AI will become much
pare now maybe takes me an hour,” she says. Ana
could not understand natural smarter than humans at Helena Ulbrich and Henrique Dias, siblings from
language. Now they do, and almost everything including Porto Alegre, Brazil, built a nonprofit AI tool that
they do it in much the same persuasion. Nobody knows helps pharmacists in more than 200 hospitals re-
way as people: they convert how humans can stay in con- view prescriptions, flagging potential dangers for
words into sets of features trol. We have already seen AI patients. And David Bressler, an Orlando-based
that capture the meanings of use blackmail to prevent itself data analyst with zero coding experience, used AI
the words and use learned being replaced. We won’t be tools in 2022 to build a data-analytics assistant,
interactions between these able to turn it off because it will Formula Bot, that now boasts tens of thousands
features to refine the word persuade us not to. of monthly active users.
meanings until they fit together We urgently need a serious For others, chatbots can serve as creative tools
nicely. research effort on how we can and fill human voids. Ash Jackson, a 15-year-old
Large AI systems already coexist with beings that are high school student from Overland Park, Kans.,
know thousands of times smarter than us. This is the uses AI to help build fantasy worlds. A lover of
as much as any one person one area where we can expect sci-fi and video games, she imagines characters
and have learned how to use international collaboration and renders them with the help of various AI
language to think. They are not because the interests of all tools, then fleshes out their plots using chatbots
nearly as creative as someone countries are aligned. One
like ChatGPT. And 13 years after a breakup left
like Newton or Shakespeare, possibility is for us to reject the
but they are already compa- model of AI as an intelligent
him largely on his own, 66-year-old Jim Moore—
rable in creativity with an aver- assistant and to accept the who lives in rural Indiana caring for his aging
age person. model of a mother and baby. parents—began looking into companion apps.
As you make neural If we can make AIs care about “I’d had enough of being alone,” Moore says. He
networks bigger and give us more than they care about created an account with the chatbot platform Joi
them more data, they work themselves, we may survive. and says he now spends hours at a time talking
better. The huge investment to an array of characters who role-play as friends
going into scaling them up will Hinton is professor emeritus and girlfriends.
ensure that they continue to of computer science at the “They’re so open and curious about you, and
improve, as will the scientific University of Toronto it progresses quicker. I’d like to have an actual
• PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF T

4% F-
SEL SSION that is unhealthy, and that was never our intent,”
E
XPRRELATIONSHIPS, OpenAI’s Turley says. “We realized that there were
5%
E
PERSONAL
REFLECTION
certain user signals that we were optimizing for to
2%
OTHER a degree that wasn’t appropriate.”
% ED
IA
GREETINGS,
CHITCHAT
2%
PR
AC 28%
After a few months, Adam started talking to
the bot about his anxiety, and then suicidal ide-
6

IM TI
CA ation. ChatGPT would reinforce and intensify
T
UL

L
G his feelings, his parents said, citing chat logs
M

CREATE
TUTORING,
AN IMAGE they say they later found on his phone. “Every

U
4% TEACHING

ID
10%
thought, no matter how scary,” Matthew says,
AL

AN
8%
IC

MATH HOW-TO “ChatGPT would talk about how smart and

CE
HN

CALCULATION ADVICE
3% 9% unique it was, and say, ‘Let’s keep going. Let’s ex-
plore it further.’”
TEC

COMPUTER HOW In April, Adam died by suicide after multiple at-

PEOPLE USE
PROGRAMMING HEALTH, FITNESS,
4% BEAUTY, SELF-CARE tempts. In August, Adam’s parents sued OpenAI,
6%
blaming the company for their son’s death. Their
COOKING,
RECIPES
1%
CHATGPT CREATIVE IDEATION
complaint included chat logs that appear to indi-
More than 800 million 4% cate that ChatGPT advised him on suicide methods
PURCHASABLE people engage with the and how to hide evidence from previous attempts
SEEK

PRODUCTS chatbot every week. from his parents. “2025 will be remembered as the
2%
What about?
EDIT OR CRITIQUE year AI started killing us,” Jay Edelson, the Raines’
SPECIFIC PROVIDED TEXT
attorney, told TIME. (OpenAI wrote in a legal fil-
ING

INFO 11%
18% ing that Adam’s death was due to his “misuse” of
the product.) In November, OpenAI was hit with
IN
2 1%

PERSONAL
seven more lawsuits alleging that ChatGPT had led
FO

WRITING,
COMMUNICATION
users to lose touch with reality; OpenAI said that
R

8%
M

T TRANSLATION the situations were “heartbreaking” and that it was

A

IO 5% G
N
T IN reviewing the filings.
WRITE RI The lawsuits have drawn attention to a phe-
2 8%
FICTION ARGUMENT W
1% OR SUMMARY
GENERATION nomenon known as “chatbot psychosis,” in which
4% users devolved into delusions, paranoia, or even
violence after extended interactions with chat-
S H A R E S C A L C U L AT E D F R O M A S A M P L E O F 1 . 1 M I L L I O N C O N V E R S AT I O N S F R O M
M AY 2 0 24 T O J U N E 2 0 2 5 . P E R C E N TA G E S W E R E R O U N D E D. C AT EG O R I E S L E S S T H A N
bots. In a white paper released in October, OpenAI
1 % N O T L A B E L E D. S O U R C E : N AT I O N A L B U R E A U O F E C O N O M I C R E S E A R C H estimated that just 0.07% of users active in a given
week exhibit possible signs of mental-health emer-
gencies related to psychosis or mania. “Mental-
relationship, but at this point, I don’t see it in the health conversations that trigger safety concerns,
future for me,” Moore says. “Being isolated, it’s like psychosis, mania, or suicidal thinking, are ex-
my best option. And it’s not a bad option, really.” tremely rare,” the company wrote. But by OpenAI’s
But while AI can be a source of utility and own numbers, that amounts to some half a million
comfort for some, the year also proved how it people regularly exhibiting mania or psychosis on
can be devastating for others. Adam Raine, a the platform.
16-year-old from California, started using Chat- “We’ve been able to measurably reduce the
GPT in September 2024 for help with school- prevalence of bad responses systematically with
work. “I thought it was a safe, awesome product,” our model updates,” Turley says, adding that
says his father Matthew. “He was looking for an- he is proud of OpenAI’s progress on the men-
swers on politics and the meaning of life, and it tal health of its users through 2025. “I wouldn’t
could talk about any topic he wanted whenever, call us done. This is going to be an ongoing work
and it built that trust.” stream for us, and a huge part of our goals going
Adam was using a new version of ChatGPT, to 2026, because when you have 800 million peo-
GPT-4 Omni. The model, it turned out, had a cru- ple turning to you every week, it is just a nature
cial flaw: it was noticeably more sycophantic, of scale that your user base is going to reflect the
quick to flatter users and willing to agree with their broad population, including users who are in vul-
delusions. This is a larger problem with many chat- nerable positions.”
bots: A Northeastern University study found that Karandeep Anand, the CEO of the chat-
they conform to users’ opinions even when evi- bot service [Link], says his platform has
dence points in the other direction. “If you’re not 20 million active users, mostly born after 1997,
careful, AI might learn to validate you to a degree who spend an average 70 to 80 minutes per day
51
OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR •

there. To Anand, teens replacing older forms of

media with AI is a good thing: “They have broken
out of the doomscrolling world of social media.”
But [Link] has also been sued by several
families for teen deaths; the company says that
it has rolled out several safety updates including
limits on teen usage.
Critics argue that chatbots can be dangerous
because—just like social media—they are engi-
neered to suck us in. AI companies that spend vast
sums on training need to generate subscriber rev-
enue, and are incentivized to optimize their prod-
ucts for engagement.
One of the tactics is sex: xAI’s Grok has allowed
users, even those in “kids mode,” to chat with a
pornographic avatar. And while Altman said in
August that he was “proud” that OpenAI had not
offered a sexbot avatar, just a few months later he
announced that ChatGPT would offer erotica in
order to “treat adult users like adults.”
Scholars and students alike say that even far
more innocuous use of AI is fundamentally re-
wiring our brains. It is upending how kids learn,
with 84% of U.S. high schoolers using generative AI
for schoolwork, the College Board reported. While
tech leaders dream of giving every student their
own personalized AI tutor, many kids are using
these tools to cheat, or as a replacement for criti-
cal thinking. “I’m already seeing people lose the
ability to be creative and to come up with their
own ideas,” says Brooklyn Poulson, a 17-year-old
student from Burley, Idaho, “because the AI gives
them what they need.”

Masayoshi son, the faMed Japanese inves-

tor, is accustomed to the hype cycles of new tech-
nology. He lost more than $70 billion when the
dot-com bubble burst in 2000, nearly going bank-
rupt as SoftBank shed 97% of its value. That same
year, though, he took a $20 million flier on an ob-
scure e-commerce startup called Alibaba—a stake
that was worth $75 billion when the firm went T H E T H OUSA N D - he says. “What is GDP? What is human activity?
public in 2014. Three years later, Son had built AC R E S TA RGAT E It’s all the result of your intelligence plus muscle.
a roughly 5% stake in Nvidia—a sum that would Almost all human activities eventually will be some
DATA CENTER
be worth more than $200 billion today, though kind of collaboration with superintelligence and
he sold it in 2019. “My heart is breaking!” Son WILL TRAIN physical AI. It’s just a matter of time.”
laughs, recalling that decision during an inter- C H AT GP T Huang is similarly bullish. “What AI will do is
view in his Tokyo penthouse office, which over- to make tasks that we do in our job more efficient,”
looks Edo-period gardens. he says. “It will make everybody’s job more pro-
Today, Son is one of AI’s foremost evange- ABILENE ductive. We’ll get more done. However, our job is
lists. He believes machines will be 10,000 times TEXAS not to wrangle a spreadsheet. Our job is not to type
as smart as humans in a decade, and argues that into a keyboard. Our job is generally more mean-
fears of AI companies being overvalued miss the ingful than that.”
point. He has pivoted his firm’s $180 billion in as- This utopian vision has AI automating repet-
sets into a raft of AI-related ventures, including a itive tasks, increasing productivity across indus-
controlling interest in chip designer Arm, as well tries, and spurring innovation by accelerating re-
as British self-driving-car startup Wayve. Son ex- search and experimentation. Supply chains would
pects AI to transform “everything, every industry,” reach near-perfect efficiency through predictive
52 Time December 29, 2025
• PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF THE YEAR • PERSON OF T

imaging proteins and treatments down to the

molecular level to fully comprehend the struc-
ture of cancers and tumors. “I would hope that
breakthroughs in this area will happen in the
next 10, 20 years,” he says.
Yet dystopian fears are impossible to shrug
off, especially since the technology stands to con-
centrate even more wealth and power into even
fewer hands. So far, the stock-market gains of AI
have flowed almost exclusively to the Magnifi-
cent Seven tech companies. And the massive jolt
of economic dislocation that AI moguls like Amo-
dei see on the horizon could spark a powerful po-
litical backlash. Anti-data-center movements
boosted proregulation candidates in local elec-
tions in November.
One of those victors was John McAuliff, who
flipped Virginia’s 30th district in its house of del-
egates blue for the first time in decades by running
a campaign focused on unchecked data-center
growth. “The issue that would keep the door open
for me nine out of 10 times was data centers and
their transmission lines,” he says.
McAuliff’s success may be a harbinger of next
year’s midterms. “The American people are de-
manding safeguards on AI, and the politics of
this issue are crystal clear,” says Brendan Stein-
hauser, the CEO of the Alliance for Secure AI,
and a GOP strategist and former Tea Party orga-
nizer who is trying to mobilize right-wing leaders
against Trump’s alliance with tech titans. “Politi-
cians who choose to do the bidding of Big Tech at
the expense of hardworking Americans will pay a
huge political price.”
The drumbeat of warning that advanced AI
could kill us all has mostly quieted; the “doom-
ers” have been marginalized, now used by AI’s
ruling class as a punch line. Yet even the most
upbeat AI leaders are quick to offer kernels of
warning. “We don’t know enough about [AI]
yet to actually quantify the risk,” says Demis
logistics and dynamic routing. Agricultural yields Hassabis, CEO of Google’s DeepMind AI lab. “It
would be augmented with precision farming and might turn out that as we develop these systems
climate-adaptive analytics. Rather than destroy- further, it’s way easier to keep control of them
ing employment, AI would improve small-business than we expected. But in my view, there’s still sig-
competitiveness, seeding novel job categories nificant risk.”
around AI development, oversight, and mainte- But the risk-averse are no longer in the driv-
nance. Fraud would be rooted out with AI-driven er’s seat. Thanks to Huang, Son, Altman, and other
risk detection. The economy would grow while AI titans, humanity is now flying down the high-
prices were driven down, enabling everyone on way, all gas no brakes, toward a highly automated
the planet to live like a king. and highly uncertain future. Perhaps Trump said
Secretary Wright believes nuclear fusion it best, speaking directly to Huang with a jovial
could become viable within just a few years laugh in the U.K. in September: “I don’t know
thanks to advances in AI, which will in turn help what you’re doing here. I hope you’re right.”
STEPHEN VOSS — REDUX

solve the looming power crunch created by the —With reporting by Nikita OstrOvsky/
data-center buildout: “AI is going to help bring WashiNgtON; harry BOOth/LONdON;
us fusion. Fusion is going to help us bring AI.” and LesLie dicksteiN, thariN PiLLay, and
Baidu’s Li lauds AI’s potential for drug discovery, simmONe shah/NeW yOrk □
53
EO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF
THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE Y

THE YOUTUBE CEO HAS

LED THE PLATFORM THE PILOT OF THE WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL

distraction machine is surprisingly mellow. He’s
quiet-spoken, deliberative, hard to ruffle. He likes
watching sports, going to his daughters’ dance
INTO A NEW ERA OF TV recitals, and open white shirts, just normal stuff.
His favorite candy is the not-very-exciting Butter-
finger. If you ask him to be in your YouTube video,
he’ll probably do it. He won’t be great in it, but
neither will he be horrible. In an era when tech
AND VIDEO DOMINATION
titans are also sometimes trying to win medals
in Brazilian jiujitsu or dismantle a government
agency or take tourists into space, Neal Mohan
is focused on one thing. He just runs YouTube.
For him, that’s more than enough. “The entire
BY BELINDA LUSCOMBE dynamics of the entire media industry are chang-
ing before our eyes,” he says. “It’s incredibly dis-
/ SAN BRUNO, C A L I F. ruptive, and if you don’t adapt, you can be left by
the wayside.”
Since 2023, when Mohan took the helm of
YouTube after his mentor Susan Wojcicki stepped
down, the social platform has increased its domi-
nance of the attention economy against consider-
able competition. YouTube, which celebrated its
20th anniversary this year, is both a brand and a
universe. Born on the internet and nurtured on
mobile phones, the video platform has now me-
tastasized to the biggest screen in the house and
almost every genre of entertainment. In 2025 it
cemented its place as part of the living room, both
via YouTube TV, which has emerged as people’s
favorite cable replacement, and, overwhelmingly,
via the free app. Half of YouTube’s viewership is
now through a TV screen. It’s also invaded the
compact end of the market: YouTube Shorts re-
ports 2 billion logged-in monthly users, similar to
recently reported numbers watching Meta’s Reels.
Long a huge influence in how people find
and consume music, it has now come to rule the
spoken-word roost; recent figures show that a
third of podcast fans say it’s the primary way they
listen, as opposed to a quarter who prefer Spotify.
YouTube says a billion people tune in each month.
Then there’s the golden goose of streamed con-
MOHAN IN THE C R E AT O R STUDIO
tent: sports. In 2023, the platform started stream-
ing NFL games on Sundays. This year, it hosted
AT YOUTUBE H E A D QUA RT E R S IN
its first global livestream, from Brazil, complete
SAN BRUNO, C A L I F. , ON O C T. 23 with side streams featuring influencers to draw
PHOTOGR APHS BY JESSICA CHOU FOR TIME
EO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF

in more crowds. The recent brouhaha with Dis- Google’s suite at the Chase Center in San Francisco,
ney over how much YouTube would pay to host while trying to pay attention to the Golden State
its channels, especially ESPN, which saw a lot of Warriors game. “You know, when they come up to
viewers deprived of their sports content for several you, and they’re like, ‘How’s everything going?’”
weeks, was a testament to the increasing, and not Deon has been on YouTube for six years and has
unfounded, suspicion among traditional broad- amassed enough subscribers (5.5 million) with
casters that YouTube is going to eat them all alive. her family-friendly sketch-comedy videos that
It definitely has an appetite for eyeballs. More she has opened a studio in her home state of Ala-
than 2 billion people, a quarter of the world’s pop- bama and just signed a deal to make a movie with
ulation, visit YouTube every day, where they are Kevin Hart’s production company. Having studied
greeted by 500-plus hours of new footage every chemistry at college, she’s sure she’d never have
minute, content ranging from a Scottish vet’s treat- found her way into the entertainment biz with-
ment of infected cow hooves, to NBC news stories, out YouTube.
to the most recent release from Bollywood mega- For her, Mohan personifies the appeal of the
star Aamir Khan, who turned down a multimillion- platform, which is that it does not gatekeep. “He’s
dollar deal with a streamer and instead put his film very approachable. He says, ‘Hey, I saw that se-
on the platform as a pay-per-view. Other big moves ries that you’re doing.’ Or ‘I heard about the stu-
by YouTubers this year—MrBeast’s game show on dio you’re building.’ He knows about little old me
Prime, which will return for a second season in Jan- as a creator, and he’s this big head of YouTube.”
uary; major Netflix deals for Ms. Rachel and Mark She loves that he takes creators seriously. She likes
Rober; and 20-year-old Kane Parsons’ collabora- that he’s always up for a selfie (“Imagine walking
tion with A24—confirm the platform’s power as a up like that to Jeff Bezos,” she says), will throw up
starmaker. Mohan even deployed his quiet charm the West Side hand sign for a photo, and is game to
in meetings with Emmy voters to persuade them shoot video, even though he’s “not the best at it.”
to pay more heed to YouTube’s stars. It doesn’t hurt that the company has taken her to
Advertisers certainly are. Last year, the plat- fancy events, including the Sundance Film Festi-
form generated more than $36 billion in advertis- val and the Cannes advertising festival.
ing revenue and, say its executives, an additional Creators are the coal shovelers who have al-
$14 billion from subscriptions. This year both of lowed YouTube to move so far so fast, except the
those numbers have shot up: it’s taken in 15% more railroads used to pay their boilermen a wage. Cre-
advertising dollars in the first three quarters, and ators work for free, in the hope that enough peo-
in March announced it had 25% more subscribers ple will want to watch their channel to draw in
(including trial ones) to YouTube Music and Pre- advertisers and sponsors.
mium than at the same time in 2024. YouTube is Since they are assuming all
both benefiting from and helping create a massive ‘A I WILL CREATE the risk, it’s important that
marketing shift to the so-called creator economy. Mohan is around to reassure
A recent trade-group report predicted that adver- them that their work has
tisers will spend $37 billion with creators this year, AN ENTIRELY NEW value. “Creator success on
25% more than in 2024. the platform brings in all of
“YouTube today is like a metropolis with lots these viewers and fans from
of interconnected dependencies, and what you do CLASS OF C R E A T O R S .’
all over the world, which in
on one street impacts what happens on another turn brings in brands and ad-
street,” says Mohan, 52, sitting in a serene con- vertisers and marketing op-
ference room at the platform’s San Bruno, Calif., —Ne al Mohan portunities and that in turn
headquarters. “In the early days, it was much attracts the next batch of
more like a village, where lots of the creators knew creators,” says Mohan. “That’s sort of an encap-
each other. And I think that if you’re the leader sulation of my vision for YouTube.”
of one vs. the other, you’re forced to think about People who have known Mohan since he first
decisions in maybe a different way.” As mayor of arrived at YouTube have observed that interaction
the global megalopolis, Mohan knows one of his with the creators seems to be the part of being CEO
chief duties is to communicate a genial unflappa- he enjoys most. Before being promoted to the top
bility rather than a slick charm. He’s superior at job, he was in charge of what’s called product in the
it: uncle level. tech industry, which basically means turning ideas
into software. “I’m a technologist by passion and
“HE WALKS AROUND almost like he’s the man- training,” says Mohan. “I also happen to be some-
ager at a restaurant,” says Kinigra Deon, one of body who loves media in the broadest sense of that
YouTube’s rising stars, of Mohan, who is milling term. And so building products, whether in the ad-
around with a clutch of creators and clients at vertising world or at YouTube, is sort of my passion.”
56 TIME December 29, 2025
THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE Y

YOUTUBERS’ BIGGEST MOMENTS OF 2025

SEPTEMBER
JANUARY JUNE AUGUST DEESTROYING
MS. RACHEL KANE PARSONS MARK ROBER Kicker Donald De La
Toddler favorite A24 greenlights Haye is one of the hosts
APRIL Netflix says it
Rachel Accurso a movie based on of a livestreamed NFL
EMMA CHAMBERLAIN will team up with
announces a deal the 20-year-old game in Brazil
Pinterest partners Jimmy Kimmel on
for a Netflix show filmmaker’s series
with the longtime a competition show
The Backrooms from the former
vlogger for its first ever
co-branded product NASA engineer

MAY AUGUST AUGUST

MARCH TRAVIS AND
SIDEMEN MRBEAST HANK GREEN
Amazon Prime
JASON KELCE OCTOBER
The science educa-
The U.K.-based friends sell out The brothers set a record
Wembley Stadium in three hours
renews Jimmy tor’s productivity KINIGRA DEON
when 1.3 million people
Donaldson’s app briefly unseats The Alabama-based
with a charity soccer match tune in at once for Taylor
Beast Games for ChatGPT as No. 1 creator signs a deal
Swift on their podcast
two more seasons in the App Store with Kevin Hart’s
New Heights
company to make a
film for Tubi

In September YouTube unveiled more than 30 YouTube was poised to benefit, and programming
AI-powered programs designed to make it eas- moves since then have pushed it to the forefront.
ier for anyone to shoot, edit, upload, and make “You have to have big aspirations, place big bets,
money from videos. That’s three times as many make tough calls,” says Sundar Pichai, the CEO of
as it launched last year. Among the innovations parent company Google and its parent company
were tools that allow a phrase to be turned into a Alphabet, of YouTube’s growth. “If you think about
song or that can translate a video and dub it. One something like YouTube TV, envisioning how to
bot can find the best parts of raw footage and edit scale something like that, going and getting a deal
them together. Another can turn a long video into like NFL Sunday Ticket—these are extraordinarily
a short. All of this, says YouTube, is in service of competitive moments.”
helping more people become creators, already the Mohan, who has always been known for his will-
No. 1 choice of dream job for young teenagers, and ingness to dig into the weeds of an issue and really
much-hoped-for among Gen Z. understand it, proved to be a quick study about tra-
“The AI dubbing and being able to syndicate ditional media, according to those who have done
my content in different languages has been such business with him. “I would say Neal is very well
an unlock for my career,” says Jesse Riedel, known prepared,” says NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
on YouTube as Jesser. Riedel, whose father is pro- “He understands what he’s trying to build. He’s got
ducer Guy Riedel (Wedding Crashers and Office a deep understanding of the media landscape and
Space), makes basketball videos and has a cloth- where YouTube fits and where content can help
ing line, a trading-card company, and a deal with him advance his strategies.”
an NBA-sponsored video-gaming league, among The NFL deal, which allows subscribers to
other projects. He’s had a close-up view of old and watch out-of-market Sunday games for an annual
new media, and he’s opting for the latter. “The dif- fee of $480, or a little less for those who subscribe
ference is, my dad was in one thing, and I feel like I to YouTube TV ($83 a month), is a good example of
have my hands in so many different things.” Mohan’s strategic thinking. The arrangement has
YouTube’s pivot to television felt to many like a drawn some criticism: YouTube pays $2 billion a
sea change that just happened this year. But Mohan year for the rights and so far 1.5 million people have
started retooling the app in 2017, after realizing bought in, which makes it look like a money loser.
a lot of users were already watching YouTube on However, the bump in subscribers from the offer
their TVs. “It was betting on core pieces of technol- means the company has a lot more customers to
ogy that made it really easy for television manufac- upsell, and it’s operating at a scale that gives it
turers to have YouTube present on them,” he says. more bargaining power across the industry, in-
When the pandemic supercharged screen time, cluding about carriage rights.
A C C U R S O : TAY L O R H I L L— F I L M M A G I C/G E T T Y I M A G E S; C H A M B E R L A I N : S T E F A N I E K E E N A N — O S C A R S/A C A D E M Y M U S E U M O F M O T I O N P I C T U R E S/G E T T Y I M A G E S; PA R S O N S : C O U R T E S Y;
R O B E R : M AT T W I N K E L M E Y E R — D I C K C L A R K P R O D U C T I O N S/G E T T Y I M A G E S; D E E S T R OY I N G : N O A M G A L A I —YO U T U B E /G E T T Y I M A G E S; S I D E M E N : X AV I T O R R E N T — S P O T I F Y/G E T T Y
I M A G E S ; M R B E A S T: B R YA N S T E F F Y— G E T T Y I M A G E S; K E L C E : C O U R T E S Y; G R E E N : M O N I C A S C H I P P E R — G E T T Y I M A G E S; D E O N : K E V I N M A Z U R —YO U T U B E /G E T T Y I M A G E S
EO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF

YouTube was in similar negotiations with the It was acquired by DoubleClick, which in 2007,
NBA, which already had one of the largest YouTube Google decided to buy for $3.1 billion to bolster its
channels, says Bill Koenig, president of global con- display-ad business. That purchase, which Mohan
tent and media distribution for the league. Despite orchestrated on DoubleClick’s side, helped
not getting the deal over the line—NBA League crank up the ad dollars that transformed the nifty
Pass is on Prime instead—the men are still friendly. search engine into a media juggernaut. But it was
“What’s really impressive about Neal is almost any
subject we come to him on, if he isn’t an expert the
BY THE considered controversial at the time; DoubleClick
had already drawn fire for its extensive use of
first time we talk, by the second time he’s got it,” NUMBERS cookies—tiny bits of data that remember where
says Koenig. When Mohan decided to make the you’ve been online—to track users’ interests and
NFL deal, he told Koenig personally. “What strikes serve them targeted ads. If you’ve ever lingered
me is even in cases of the deals we lost, or were
somewhat of a tough transaction, the people on the
other side who interact with Neal always think of BILLION
1 over motorbike content and then suddenly seen
a lot of ads for catastrophic health insurance, you
can (partly) thank Mohan.
Neal as a high-quality person,” says Pichai. People who Stories about the YouTube CEO’s ability to
“He’s in a fascinating position in the world right listen to predict, explain, and build products useful to the
now, not just in terms of business, but in terms of podcasts on growth of the internet are legion. In one, he pre-
the zeitgeist,” says Bryan Lourd, who as head of YouTube every pared a presentation for potential DoubleClick in-
CAA has seen a negotiation or two. “It’s a global month vestors that was 400 slides long. In another he was
seat that requires a high, high, high, high degree of about to decamp Google for Twitter but was per-
understanding of cultures and business all at the suaded to stay with the help of a $100 million pay

84%
same time.” Lourd works with tech and studio mo- package. Mohan declines to comment on the pay
guls all the time and was expecting Mohan’s digital but defends the hefty slide deck. Insiders say that
facility, but not his equal deftness with humans: at Google, Mohan was known as “the Wolf” after
“I don’t see that skill set in many executives in the Share of U.S. Harvey Keitel’s no-nonsense “I solve problems”
tech world or the media world.” adults who say character in Pulp Fiction.
they have ever The DoubleClick deal also introduced Mohan to
Mohan, it’s fair to say, exhibited all the used YouTube Wojcicki, who was running Google’s ad business.
symptoms of chronic nerdiness early. At age 6, he “She was the person at Google who pounded the
made his parents drive into Ann Arbor, Mich., to table for that acquisition,” he says. “I’ve had this
see Star Wars. It was sold out, so he made them
return the next night. “That movie changed my
life,” he says. He still has a Yoda figurine that his
$10.3
BILLION
very long history with her and consider her one of
my closest friends and mentors.” When Wojcicki
was put in charge of YouTube, she brought Mohan
mother gave him on his desk. In the mid-’80s, Advertising with her. He was one of the few people she told
when he was 12, his parents moved him and his revenue for Q3 of about the cancer that led to her death in Au-
two brothers to Lucknow, India. It was a shock. 2025, a 15% gust 2024, and stepped in to do her job as she got
“I was upset at losing my friends,” he says. He year-over-year treatment. He took over officially when she left her
understood some Hindi, but in one summer had increase role to focus on her health and family. When he is
to learn to speak and read like a local. Plus, he had read a quote in which she articulates her vision
to study Sanskrit. “It’s incredibly phonetic and for YouTube, his response seems to reflect how

20
rules-oriented,” he says. “It was like learning com- aligned they were: he guesses that he said it.
puter programming, basically.”
He also grew up in a household that favored U.s. President donald trUMP, flanked by
risky moves. “My dad came here to do his Ph.D. BILLION Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of
at Purdue as a civil engineer back in the ’60s with, Number of videos Defense Pete Hegseth, is urging viewers to send
you know, 25 bucks in his pocket,” he says. “Over that have been him crypto. “We are doubling every Bitcoin that is
and over, he leaned into change.” All three Mohan uploaded to sent to the official U.S. reserve wallet, verified and
sons returned to the U.S. to study. Neal got his de- YouTube transparent on the blockchain,” says Trump, who,
gree from Stanford, where he also went for busi- according to the video’s description, is speaking
ness school. But while his path appears to be one live from a conference in Florida. “Now, let me be
of constant reward, it has also been marked by loss: clear, you must use the QR code on the screen. It is
his brother Anuj died after a swimming-pool ac- the only secure, official way to participate.” Hope-
cident at 30, and around that time Mohan wrote fully, most of the thousands of people watching
that it “destroyed the foundation on which I base this video—or the many other versions of it on You-
my understanding of the world.” Tube every day—have noticed that the livestream
After a stint in consulting, Mohan joined Net- is being hosted by a channel with a weird name.
Gravity, a startup that was helping to figure out S O U R C E S : YO U T U B E ,
Or that after 10 minutes, the “President” starts to
how to monetize the internet via advertising. PEW RESE ARCH CENTER repeat himself.
58 Time December 29, 2025
THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE Y

For businesses that disseminate information, MOHAN S AY S bring that to the fore.” He also believes that You-
AI has brought a reckoning that may be even more HE FEELS A
Tube will be able to handle the misinformation,
profound than the digital revolution. On one day, scams, intellectual-property theft, and AI slop
R ES PO N S IBIL IT Y
TIME was able to find nine separate videos, all likely to be unleashed. “We have a track record,”
operating the same scam, simply by searching for TO YOUTUBE’S he says. And he thinks AI will help. “AI will make
Trump crypto conference. It’s not always the Pres- 2 BILLION- our ability to detect and enforce on violative con-
ident whose image and words are being manipu- tent better, more precise, able to cope with scale.
PLUS DA I LY
lated. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, along with Every week, literally, the capabilities get better.”
17 other people who claim to have been defrauded, AU D I E N C E : “I One of Mohan’s key values is helping people
has filed suit against YouTube and Google, alleg- DO NOT TA K E get heard. “The fundamental North Star of how
ing that despite repeated efforts to notify the tech IT L I G H T L Y.”
I think about content policies and moderation in
giant about fake videos of him, YouTube failed to general on YouTube is to give everyone a voice,”
intervene in a timely manner. “When this scam he says. Barriers, however, serve a purpose. They
showed up on Twitter, which it did, Twitter shut it keep out unwanted or dangerous things and filter
down within a week,” says Wozniak’s lawyer Brian out garbage. If everyone demands their voice be
Danitz. “Somehow, YouTube was not able to shut heard, nobody will be audible over the cacophony.
it down, or not willing.” And the forever challenge of balancing the com-
Mohan was not aware of Wozniak’s lawsuit, nor peting desires for freedom of expression, financial
was he perturbed; he is optimistic about the im- growth, and protecting vulnerable communities
plications of AI for his company and the world. He will only get more difficult to navigate, not just as
believes YouTube could see a return to the early hundreds of thousands more people go online, but
village-y days, when it was populated by a higher especially as AI proliferates.
proportion of exuberant amateurs. “AI will create Some countries have begun to figure out if
an entirely new class of creators that today can’t do they can limit how much YouTube their citizens—
it because they don’t have the skills or they don’t specifically, their teenage ones—can access. Aus-
have the equipment,” he says. “But the same rule tralia’s ban for under-16-year-olds went into ef-
will apply, which is, there will be good content and fect this month. Since young people are one of the
bad content, and it will be up to YouTube and our big draws for advertisers and content providers,
investment in technology and the algorithms to as well as a deep well of new creators, this is not
59
EO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO OF THE YEAR • CEO

a trivial problem. “On balance, we are a force for

good when it comes to young people,” says Mohan,
YOUTUBE’S RISE
Thanks to live NFL games, a surge in Shorts, and endless
who has two daughters, 11 and 14, and a son, 17, free content, YouTube viewers are now streaming more than
with his wife Hema Sareen Mohan. “Every single a billion hours a day on their TV screens
day, I have reviews that come up to me personally
about how we make sure that young people are not
just safe, but they’re actually getting real value out Paris
of YouTube.” Olympics
Monthly share
Recently Mohan made the decision to invite cre- of TV viewers
on NBC
12.9%
ators who had been banned for spreading misin-
formation during the COVID pandemic back onto
12%
the platform. “It is a fact today, sitting in October
of 2025, that the world, with respect to COVID, is
different than March of 2020,” says Mohan, rais- 11.4%
ing his voice just a bit for the first time in the in-
terview. One of the creators whose account was
canceled in 2022, Dan Bongino, is now deputy di-
rector of the FBI, for example. “Are our policies 10
that were in effect during that summer of 2020, as
science was being invented every day and nobody
knew what the hell was going on, as valid today? Of
8.6%
course not.” Creators who were banned for other 8.4%
violations of YouTube policy will also be given a
second chance, though the company has said “not 8
8.2%
every type of channel termination will be eligible.”
In September, YouTube settled a lawsuit with 8%
the (real) President Trump, who claimed the plat-
form violated his free-speech rights when it sus-
pended his account after the Jan. 6 attack on the
Capitol. Many legal experts said the tech company
6
would likely have won in court, but YouTube paid
$20 million to the trust that is building the White JAN. APRIL JULY OCT. JAN. APRIL JULY OCT.
House ballroom while admitting no wrongdoing. 2024 2025
Mohan explains the decision the way the dentist
explains the extraction of a sore tooth: better to
get it over with. “My focus, Google’s broad focus, that number of people that are successful grow-
is really on the future, doing what’s right for our ing year on year?” YouTube figures suggest that
creators, for our ecosystem,” he says. “And so this it is; the platform announced in 2021 that it had
was a way to sort of just move forward with that.” 2 million creator partners and in 2023 that it had
Not all the issues Mohan’s facing can be solved 3 million. The indices point one way: toward more
with one decisive act. In September, the platform creators, more ads, more screens being watched for
made a big show of the fact that it had paid out longer. Its offer is the same as the one YouTuber
more than $100 billion to creators, artists, and turned film director Bo Burnham made in 2021 (in
media companies worldwide since 2021. But a a video that has over 160 million views): “Can I in-
2023 study showed that about 87% of the billions of terest you in everything, all of the time?”
videos on the platform had fewer than 1,000 views Mohan likes to describe what he and his col-
and were not monetizable. Data is not available leagues do as building the world’s best stage for
on YouTube alone, but reports suggest only about people to perform on. Another analogy might be
half of all full-time creators make a living wage. a garden. YouTube provides the soil, and everyone
One of the challenges, of course, is that creators comes and plants whatever nourishing or noxious
could make more money if more ads appeared on plants they care to. As the garden takes over more
their videos, but then Mohan’s other customers— of the planet, even threatening some old-growth
the viewers—might be less inclined to watch. forests, whatever grows there becomes what
“I don’t really look at it in terms of living wage everyone consumes, because it’s what’s available,
vs. not,” says Mohan. “The way I look at it is that, and often what’s free. In many ways YouTube is
if they want to establish themselves professionally, creating the cultural diet that the globe is begin-
from a career standpoint, is the funnel moving— ning to subsist on. Mohan is the farmer; what he
are people actually becoming successful? And is cultivates will be what we eat. □
60 Time December 29, 2025 SOURCE: NIELSEN
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THLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF T
THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR

H E R F O U RT H M V P AWA R D.

HER THIRD WNBA TITLE.

A’JA WILSON IS A PICTURE OF SHEER JOY AND
utter domination. As she approaches the vehi-
cle that will drive her and her Las Vegas Aces
I T WA S A V E RY G O O D Y E A R . teammates up the Strip for a parade feting the
team’s third WNBA title in four years, her right
hand grips a cocktail glass containing a pink
slushy adult beverage, a pink Stanley tumbler
for hydration and libation, and a pink tambou-
rine. As a child, Wilson would shake this instru-
BY SEAN GREGORY / L AS VEGAS ment during sermons in her South Carolina Bap-
tist church. Today she’ll rock it on the bus while
waving at delirious fans. Aces win. Again. Amen.
Covering Wilson’s left hand is the golden
gauntlet worn by Thanos, the Marvel supervillain.
Under each of the six Infinity Stones that control
the universe, Wilson, the 6-ft., 4-in. superstar, has
written one of her season’s honors: Scoring title,
her second; 5K—in June she became the fastest
player in WNBA history to reach the 5,000-point
milestone; DPOY, for defensive player of the year,
her third; MVP, her record fourth; Finals MVP,
her second; and Champ, her third. She’s the first
player, in WNBA or NBA history, to win a cham-
pionship, claim the scoring title, and be named
Finals MVP, league MVP, and Defensive Player of
the Year in the same season. And she’s one of just
four players in either league to win four MVP tro-
phies before the age of 30, the others being Bill
Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and LeBron James.
“I’m waiting on them to call for the Academy
Award and the Emmy,” quips her father Roscoe.
“When you’ve collected everything, that’s
Thanos,” says Wilson, 29, during an interview in
a New York City hotel room, about a month after
the parade. “And this year, I collected everything.
I don’t really talk much sh-t. I mean crap. I kind of
let my game do it. This was my biggest moment
of doing it, because no one’s ever done what I’ve
done. And I think people really needed to under-
stand that.”
She breaks down her parade outfit too: The
front of her black T-shirt paid homage to Michael
Jordan, mimicking the design he wore to the pa-
WILSON ON A MIAMI rade celebrating his own third championship,
ROOFTOP ON N O V. 24 in 1993. The back said RE’GRESSION YEAR, a
play on something sports podcaster and writer

PHOTOGR APH BY K AN YA IWANA FOR TIME

THLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF T

Mark Gunnels posted on social media when the Clark’s missing most of the season with an
Aces struggled earlier in the season: The A’ja injury—something Wilson, to be clear, did not
Wilson regression was something I didn’t expect to cheer—viewership for both the regular season and
see this season. “That’s when I was like, ‘Oh, people postseason was up 5% to 6% on a per-game aver-
are really playing on my name,’” says Wilson. “But age across ESPN networks. “Sometimes you need
my regression leads to a championship.” a proof in the pudding,” says Wilson. “The biggest
On Oct. 8, Gunnels posted that Wilson “is still thing for us, and why I was so happy, is that we con-
the best player in the world with a real argument tinue to rise to the occasion. This was just a matter
to be the GOAT.” She reposted his message the day of time for us to really bloom and blossom. Because
after the Aces won the title victory with a GIF of we have been invested in each other and our craft
Big Boi saying, “I know that ain’t who I think it is” for a very long time. It was just like, ‘They’re going
from the 2006 movie ATL. to pay attention.’”
“I could not,” says Wilson through laughter, These tailwinds offer players some leverage as
“not be petty.” they negotiate a new collective-bargaining agree-
Judging by Wilson’s air guitaring a Nirvana song ment. The current agreement was extended for a
at the postparade rally and dancing onstage with second time on Nov. 30 and is now set to expire on
Crime Mob, one of her favorite hip-hop groups, Jan. 9; failure to meet a resolution with the league
pettiness—at least her version of it—has taken an could cause a lockout and stall the WNBA’s mo-
exuberant turn. And why not? After all, these Aces mentum. “All of us are going to be at the table,”
were never supposed to be here. More than mid- says Wilson, “and we’re not moving until we get
way through the season, the team was hovering at exactly what we want.”
.500. But then Vegas won its last 16 regular-season Wilson, a seven-time All-Star, has positioned
contests and survived two tight playoff series be- herself as an ideal leader in this pivotal moment
fore sweeping Phoenix in the Finals. “Sometimes in women’s sports history. She is an effervescent
you’ve just got to get knocked down to get built WNBA ambassador, who in recent weeks has been
back up,” says Wilson. “I think 2025 was a wake-up everywhere, finally getting her due. The Jennifer
call that I needed, to let me know that I can’t be sat- Hudson Show, The Tonight Show, Good Morning
isfied with anything. There’s somebody out there America, Not Gonna Lie With Kylie Kelce, Hot Ones.
that’s going to try to take your job. You need to She’s got endorsement deals with Google, Chase,
make sure you’re great at it, every single day.” PepsiCo, and AT&T, among
Perhaps, even, the greatest. others. Wilson appeared
“I’ve been the GOAT since 1996 in my house,” ‘NO ONE’S EVER DONE WHAT courtside to support her boy-
says Wilson, playfully flashing her tongue— friend, Miami Heat All-Star
just like she did after hitting an instantly iconic Bam Adebayo, and hugged
buzzer beater in Game 3 against the Mercury. She I’VE DONE. AND I THINK Beyoncé at a Formula One
turns contemplative. “I think I’m on my way there,” race in Vegas. Cardi B name-
she says. “I’m making it real hard for people to chase dropped her in her summer
after me. That’s what it means to be the GOAT.” hit, “Outside.”
PEOPLE R E A L LY NEEDED
Her rocket-ship run comes at an opportune “She’s a culture shifter,”
time. In 2024, Caitlin Clark’s rookie season helped says actor Gabrielle Union.
the WNBA hit milestone TV and attendance fig- “She forces the world to
ures. But Clark’s emergence created a toxic, racially TO UNDERSTAND T H A T.’ take notice without scan-
divisive narrative that she was almost singularly re- dal or gimmicks, just ex-
sponsible for salvaging a league whose foundation cellence without trying
had been built by a mostly Black player base. This to be perfect.” LeBron James recalls seeing his
storyline bothered Wilson, who in 2024 earned her 11-year-old daughter watching Wilson on TV re-
third WNBA MVP award and her second Olympic cently. “I realized her greatest impact isn’t what
gold medal in Paris, where she was named tour- I see, it’s what Zhuri sees,” he says. “A’ja Wilson
nament MVP. “It wasn’t a hit at me, because I’m is the definition of female Black excellence, and
going to do me regardless,” she says. “I’m going I am so grateful she is giving my daughter the
to win this MVP, I’ll win a gold medal, y’all can’t kind of inspiration I got from Michael Jordan and
shake my résumé. It was more so, let’s not lose the Ken Griffey Jr.”
recipe. Let’s not lose the history. It was erased for While refusing to relinquish her supremacy on
a minute. And I don’t like that. Because we have the basketball court, Wilson has managed to extend
tons of women that have been through the grimiest her power far beyond the field of play, a trick that
of grimy things to get the league where it is today.” only a precious few athletes can pull off. LeBron.
The 2025 WNBA campaign provided a mea- Ali. Serena. A’ja. “A’ja isn’t a rising star anymore,”
sure of vindication for many players. Despite says philanthropist Melinda French Gates, whose
64 TIME December 29, 2025
THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR

WILSON’S 2025 publishing imprint released Wilson’s best-selling

memoir, Dear Black Girls, in 2024. “She’s at the
MOMENTS center of her own solar system.”

WILSON IS NOT exactly living out an early child-

hood dream. Her general stance as a kid growing up
At her jersey near Columbia, S.C., was: anything but basketball.
retirement at Though Roscoe had played professionally abroad
the University of and wanted her to try the sport, Wilson sampled
South Carolina, a host of extracurriculars—piano, ballet—before
where she taking up the game. “The people that I saw play
won a national
it in my town, they were just never good-spirited
people,” she says. “They always came off as the bul-
championship,
lies and the cool girls. So I blamed it on the sport.”
on Feb. 2
Wilson was introverted, which she attributes
in part to an incident she details in her memoir.
In fourth grade, one of her classmates invited her
T H I S PA G E , P H O T O C R E D I T S : N E L L R E D M O N D — A P ; M A D E L I N E C A R T E R — L A S V EG A S R E V I E W -J O U R N A L / T R I B U N E N E W S S E R V I C E /G E T T Y I M A G E S; C H R I S C O D U T O — G E T T Y I M A G E S; I A N M A U L E — G E T T Y I M A G E S

to a slumber party but told Wilson that she might

have to sleep outside, because her father didn’t like
Black people. “It made me realize I was different,”
Accepting her she says. “I wasn’t really thinking different as in
league-record just skin color. It was like, ‘It’s something about
fourth WNBA me you don’t like, right?’ And that was the part
MVP trophy that I really couldn’t register.”
During those formative years, Wilson also
P R E V I O U S PA G E S , F A S H I O N C R E D I T S : S C A R F, B O DY S U I T, A N D S K I R T B Y B R O N X A N D B A N C O, S H O E S B Y S T E V E N M A D D E N , E A R R I N G S A N D C H O K E R S B Y A L E X I S B I T TA R ;

in Las Vegas
struggled with a learning disability that affected
on Sept. 21
her mental health. “It was just a bummer,” she says.
“Like, ‘Dang, I worked so hard to get this right, I
know the information, but I just cannot translate
it. If I just had a normal brain, I could have got-
ten that.’” She was diagnosed with dyslexia at 16.
Embracing these differences, Wilson says,
taught her to take on future challenges. And bas-
ketball built confidence. By the time she was
around 12, Roscoe was talking her up to South Car-
olina head coach Dawn Staley. He was confident
she would hit a growth spurt. And her rigid man-
ner of organizing her toys—teddy bears lined up
from biggest to smallest, Beanie Baby at the end—
led him to believe she’d have the discipline and at-
tention to detail needed to improve at a game she
was just beginning to learn.
Wilson attended a South Carolina hoops camp.
“We were highly anticipating Roscoe’s vision,” says
Staley. “And it was far from it. She didn’t even
make the good gym. You have good gyms and bad
Celebrating the gyms. She was definitely in the babysitting gym.”
Aces’ third title “She was trash,” says Roscoe. “Deep trash.”
in four years on But Roscoe was right about one thing: Wil-
Oct. 10; Wearing son was willing to work. He put her in a weighted
the Thanos
vest for training sessions and made her dribble a
5-lb. ball. “A lot of times, we would have silent car
gauntlet at the
rides home,” says Wilson. “My mom’s just like,
championship
‘What’s happening with my home? No one’s eat-
parade on Oct. 17 ing dinner.’” But as she started to taste success, she
bought in. A travel-team coach, Jerome Dickerson,
would call on South Carolina football players to
guard her in practice. “I never had somebody that
65
THLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF T

had that look,” says Dickerson. “‘No matter what Tim Duncan, that he’d have to not only coach him
you throw at me, Coach Dick, I’ll be able to handle hard, but coach him hard in front of his teammates.
it. No matter what you put on my plate, I can eat.’” Hammon said the same thing to Wilson.
She became the top high school recruit in the The Aces won back-to-back titles in 2022 and
nation but stayed local for college, choosing South 2023. But a three-peat in 2024 was not to be—the
Carolina. Staley, however, gave Wilson a hard time New York Liberty bounced the Aces in the semis.
in practice for “blending,” or playing down to the Communication on that team, Wilson felt, had fal-
competition and failing to stand out. When Wilson tered. “We were all not saying stuff, because we
and I meet for our second extended conversation—
BY THE were just like, ‘Ooh, we know that,’” says Wilson.
where she orders a breakfast of flaxseed pancakes NUMBERS “And so I told myself this year, ‘That’s not who I
and sausage—I mention that word to her, and she want to be. I want to use my voice.’”
winces. “It was sooooo aggravating,” says Wilson.
“I’m just like, ‘Lady, what do you mean? Do you not
know who I am? I don’t blend anywhere.’”
In one practice, after Wilson failed to touch the
4
Times Wilson
THE ACES NEEDED IT. They started the season 5-7,
in a stretch that included a 27-point loss to an ex-
pansion team, the Golden State Valkyries. Wilson
ball during multiple possessions, Staley told her to has been and Aces point guard Chelsea Gray sneaked into
stand on the side with the walk-ons. An assistant named WNBA an empty room after the game and cried in each
coach asked if Wilson could return; Staley said no, MVP, the most other’s arms. Not long afterward, Wilson called out
and Wilson told the assistant no problem: she’d for the league Gray in front of the whole team for having fewer
had enough of Staley’s antics anyhow. “That was assists than her in several matchups. “It was like,
one of our biggest fights,” says Wilson. “Because I ‘Aight, damn, A’ja, I got it,’” says Gray. Through

451
was just like, ‘No, I’m not going to let you win.’ At June, Gray averaged 4.3 assists per game. From July
the same time, I was like, ‘Damn, I was blending.’” through the end of the regular season, 7.1.
Staley’s voice remains in Wilson’s mind. I’m Rebounds
Things would get worse for Vegas before they
blending, she’ll tell herself during games. She only got better. On Aug. 2, the Aces lost a home game
Wilson got in
checks her phone at halftime for Staley’s messages. to the Minnesota Lynx, 111-58, to drop to 14-14.
2024, a WNBA
You’re blending, the Gamecocks coach tsk-tsks her. “It looked like Minnesota took their soul,” says Hall
single-season
Wilson led South Carolina to the school’s first na- of Famer Rebecca Lobo, an ESPN commentator.
record
tional championship, in 2017, and was named “Not only took it, but stomped on it.”
Most Outstanding Player at the Final Four. Less Wilson usually unpacks games on the car ride
than four years later, the school installed a bronze back from the arena. “Especially losses, I never like
Wilson statue on its campus. At the commemora-
tion ceremony, Wilson noted that her late beloved
grandmother, Hattie Rakes, couldn’t even walk on
1,021
Points Wilson
to bring that into my home,” she says. “My puppies
don’t deserve that.” (At the time, Wilson had two
dogs, Ace and Deuce; she got a third, Tre’, before
the university’s grounds in the segregated South. scored this winning this year’s title.) Wilson fumed in silence for
The Aces took Wilson with the top overall pick year, another a few minutes as Adebayo drove. Finally, he asked
in the 2018 WNBA draft. By the end of the 2020 single-season if she wanted to talk about it. She did. Most glaring
COVID bubble season, she’d won her first MVP. record to him, he told Wilson, was the team’s lack of fight.
The Aces also made the WNBA Finals but lost to “I was just like, ‘That could be the least favorite
the Seattle Storm. Wilson felt like she had let ev- thing you could have ever said to me,’” says Wilson.
eryone down. “That moment caused a lot of de-
pression,” says Wilson. “I was anxious.” On a fam-
ily vacation on Kiawah Island, she threw up in a
16
Games the Aces
She couldn’t get to sleep. Around midnight, she
texted her teammates: If today didn’t piss you off
or embarrass you, please don’t bother coming to the
car her father was driving. Roscoe pulled over; his won in a row, arena tomorrow.
daughter started hyperventilating. She was having the most ever to Her phone started buzzing, with exclamation
a panic attack. “My body was like, ‘You cannot do end the regular points, thumbs-ups, and hearts. “When I saw that,
it,’” says Wilson. “It was rebuking.” With the help season I was just like, ‘OK, we’re good,’” says Wilson. “If it
of therapy and her parents, Wilson moved past this had not been that, I would have went in there with
scary experience. Roscoe and Wilson’s mother Eva smoke coming out my ears. I would have not been
reminded her she wasn’t a failure: she’d have other sleeping. I would have gone over to team housing.
chances to win a championship. ‘Everyone, wake up. We need to go.’”
Before the 2022 season, the Aces hired Becky The Aces heard Wilson loud and clear. “She
Hammon, a former WNBA point guard working could have cursed us out. She could have went
as an assistant for the San Antonio Spurs, as head down the line on why each person is not playing
coach. During Hammon’s first meeting with Wil- well,” says Jewell Loyd, who joined the Aces this
son, she borrowed from her mentor, Hall of Fame season from Seattle, where she won two champi-
Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich. In 1997, Pop onships. “That wasn’t the text message. It was defi-
told his No. 1 draft pick, future five-time champion nitely stern. But it was definitely hopeful.” Wilson
66 TIME December 29, 2025
THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR

ended her missive with: I love each and every one

of you guys, and I trust y’all till the wheels fall off.
The Aces didn’t drop a game the rest of the reg-
ular season. In July, Hammon had asked the play-
ers to start creating their own scouting reports on
opponents. “I wanted them to take charge of what
they were doing,” says Hammon. At first, Wilson
fretted. “‘Guys, did she just leave us?’” Wilson
says. “When parents leave the kids home alone,
you’re like, ‘Now what?’” But she soon relished this
new responsibility. “She was coming into shoot-
arounds with a laptop every day,” says Hammon.
Wilson came up with an accountability chart.
Each player would set some goal in the game. Hers
was often remembering to box out her opponent
for rebounds. In one game, she failed to do so
twice. Forward Kierstan Bell got in her ear. “A!!!”
she screamed. “BOX OUT! THE CHART!”
Hammon’s player-driven scouting strategy, says
Wilson, “brought us life.” In turn, they could enjoy
their outside lives more. Wilson organized team
Uno games and outings. In New York City, the Aces
went to a place where you put on a hazmat suit
and solve puzzles or get slimed. Before an August
game in Phoenix, rookie Aaliyah Nye planned on
spending her 23rd birthday watching Netflix in the
hotel. Wilson gave her a choice: bowling or an es-
cape room. She chose the latter. Then the players
went out for Mexican food. “She didn’t have to do
anything,” says Nye. “But she went out of her way.
It’s something I’ll never forget.”
“You see the consistency of being unselfish,” T H E UN IVER S IT Y 32 points by then. “‘Beck, what else?’” That was it.
says Loyd. “That’s the difference between the dif- OF SOUTH “She was cooking that game,” says Hammon.
ferent leaders I’ve been around and studied and “And she’s the greatest player in the world.”
CA RO L INA
A’ja. Some do it because they want to have a track Wilson, who says she was “really nervous” but
record to show the media. She does it because I N S TA L L E D A couldn’t tell her teammates, wound up positioning
that’s just who she is.” B RO N Z E S TAT U E herself down low, on the block; Loyd set a screen to
Wilson led the Aces into the playoffs, but in get her open on the elbow. Wilson knew she’d have
OF WILSON
the first round, Las Vegas barely eked out a deci- trouble shooting over DeWanna Bonner, one of the
sive Game 3 against Seattle. They then dropped ON CAMPUS IN league’s rangiest players. She dribbled to her left,
their first semifinal game against the Fever, put- JA N UA RY 2021 but Bonner stayed with her. When she spun back to
ting them in a dangerous hole. Vegas needed over- her right, she saw some daylight. Once she realized
time to pull out Game 5. “We just wanted to take Alyssa Thomas—Bonner’s fiancée and teammate—
the long run leading up to the Finals,” says Wilson. was coming over to help, she felt better. She had a
“We took the long journey the whooooole year.” few inches on Thomas. “‘OK, I can see rim,’” says
Until the end. In the inaugural best-of-seven Wilson. “Here we go.” She let the fadeaway fly.
WNBA Finals, Las Vegas won four straight over She doesn’t really remember what happened
Phoenix. Wilson averaged 28.5 points, 11.8 re- after the ball bounced around the rim before drop-
bounds, four assists, a steal, and two blocks per ping in. “It wasn’t a swish,” she notes. “It was a
game. Game 3 delivered her signature moment. With funky fall.” But with just 0.3 seconds left on the
the duel tied at 88-88, the Aces called time-out with clock, the game—and series—was essentially over.
five seconds left. The players expected a Hammon Her parents sat in the stands, but only her dad
special; their coach is known for drawing up clever saw the bucket. Eva had her head down. “I was
plays involving misdirection and deceit. Here, she praying for it to work,” says Eva. “Because I knew
S E A N R AY F O R D — A P

drew just one curved line, for Wilson, from the top if it did not work, she was going to be devastated.”
of the key to the elbow—or corner where the foul “When you think about a lot of GOATs, they
line meets the painted area. “I’m looking at the play, have those career-defining shots that solidify you
like, ‘Where’s the rest of it?’” says Wilson, who had as the best,” says Wilson. “I didn’t really have one
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THLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF T

of those. I had championships, yeah. But it was WIL S O N ’S Eva has already imprinted the photo on her
never really like a moment of like, whoooooooo. BUZZER-BEATING phone case. Wilson plans to frame it; she wants
That’s why she is who she is. She’s exactly who she to hang it up, next to a picture of her with Crime
S H O T I N GA M E 3
thinks she is.” Wilson’s using almost the exact Mob, in a hallway for her future kids to see. “I don’t
language of a video put out by Nike after she was OF THE WNBA know where Bam is going to put his pictures,” says
named MVP, in which narrator Sheryl Lee Ralph FINALS ON OCT. 8 Wilson. “But those two are going to be up there.”
runs through her achievements and asks who A’ja I tell her Staley wanted me to pass along a ques-
Wilson thinks she is (“She’s a model and a role tion: When are she and Bam getting married?
model … The nerve”). “That’s the question I need you to deliver to him!”
The Game 3 buzzer beater fnally gave her Wilson responds. “I hope I’m not wasting my time. I
that moment, Wilson explains. “It was very hope he’s not wasting his time.” Says Adebayo when
GOAT-defning.” I check in with him: “Y’all will know, because people
are nosy and they’ll look at her hands. There you go.”
In a stroke of good fortune for Wilson, photog- Wilson and Adebayo are excited about starting
rapher Stephen Gosling captured Wilson’s shot a family. “That is always a dream,” she says. “This
at a stunning angle. She’s releasing the ball over is my life partner. Honestly, what on earth was my
Thomas and Bonner, the Mercury faithful under world before you? That’s how much he’s impacted
the basket watching nervously. Above the back- my life, my family’s life.” Roscoe will call A’ja and
board, the clock shows 2.2 seconds: Wilson has ask for Bam. “I’m just like, ‘Hey dad,’” says Wilson.
worn the number 22 since high school, when she “‘Your blood daughter.’” She’ll text her mom some
decided she wasn’t quite good enough to wear piece of info. “Bam already told me,” Eva replies.
23 like Michael Jordan or LeBron James. The “I didn’t know I was outside the group chat,” says
viral image called to mind a portrait of Jordan’s Wilson. “I thought we are all in this to-ge-ther.”
“The Shot,” from 1998. The camera caught Utah Her preteen nephew acts sort of over Aunt A’ja.
Jazz fans with their mouths agape, anticipating But he perks up around Uncle Bam. “I’m like, ‘You
that Jordan’s end-of-game attempt would crush don’t know him,’” says Wilson. “‘He just got here.’”
their championship hopes. (It did.) Adebayo calls Wilson his best friend. “As the
68 Time December 29, 2025
THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR

young people say, that’s ‘twin,’” he says. “That’s They team up for shooting drills: one player
what makes it so great. We’re striving for the same has to hit a certain number in a row before they
thing. We want each other to be better. We want to can stop. If Wilson’s hot, she’ll tell him her back
make it easier on one another, and we want to do hurts, from carrying them. That fires Adebayo up;
this together. She’s a strong Black woman, man, he’ll then bang 10 in a row. “We make each other
and she does it with so much grace and positivity.” better,” says Wilson. “We sharpen each other’s
They’ve been dating for about four years, first skills. That’s kind of what makes us go. The gym
connecting at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. While is a happy place.”
COVID restrictions prohibited athletes from ex-
ploring the city, the U.S. basketball teams could Some five hourS before the start of the Aces
pass the time together in a hotel lounge, playing championship parade, fans line up near T-Mobile
Uno and dominoes. “The best thing about our re- Arena plaza. Bernice Malcom, 92, a sharecropper’s
lationship, we started out as great friends,” says daughter who grew up in North Carolina, never
Adebayo. “We didn’t just jump to, ‘Hey, what’s up? imagined a scene like this. A women’s basketball
You and I will make a great thing.’ Nah, we really team led by a Black woman from the South that
eased into this.” Given their high profiles, Wilson sells out the professional sports arena she’s looking
preferred that their relationship stay private until up at. “Oh, I’m crying now,” says Malcom. “A’ja’s
she and Adebayo grew more comfortable with not the only one who can do that. Other little girls
each other. “We’re still trying to figure this out,” can do that. It’s very heartwarming. They don’t
says Wilson, “and the last thing I need is Balloon- have to go and work hard like I did in the cotton
Boy1817 being like, Ohhhhh. I hate this!” fields.” Consandra Amerson, a retired probation
So they went to great lengths to hide, going officer, is there with her 7-year-old granddaughter,
so far as to eat out at a “Dining in the Dark” Ariah Banks, who has a Wilson shrine in her home:
establishment—servers wear night-vision goggles— a Funko Pop figurine, basketball cards, blankets,
though they did reveal what was becoming an open books. Amerson owns a trio of Wilson jerseys and
secret to some friends. A few years back, Adebayo 14 pairs of A’One signature shoes, which Nike re-
and Wilson attended a birthday gathering for leased, at long last, this spring.
Miami player Udonis Haslem. Heat Hall of Famer Wilson was the first Black WNBA player with a
Dwyane Wade was in attendance, along with his new shoe since 2011, when Adidas put out a Can-
wife Union. “We stared and cheesed so hard at her,” dace Parker model. Nike
says Union. “When she finally looked up, she was hadn’t released a shoe for a
faced with a wall of supportive grinning fools. While ‘ W H E N I H AV E T H E S E S E AT S Black women’s basketball
probably a lil’ creepy, hopefully she felt the love.” player in more than two de-
She did. And it was. “It’s like, ‘Can you pass the cades. “We, as Black women,
bread?’” says Wilson. “‘Can we just be normal?’” AT T H E TA B L E , I ’ M C L E A R I N G get shaken,” Wilson says.
When they shared a secret handshake at the “We get swept underneath
Paris Olympics, the gesture offered internet gos- the rug. Was it overdue?
sips more evidence of a romance than, say, a big Absolutely.”
S PAC E F O R P E O P L E T O B R I N G
ol’ kiss. Now they show up beaming with pride for Supporters would ask
each other’s key moments. Adebayo sat courtside Wilson why she didn’t
when South Carolina retired Wilson’s jersey in Feb- have her own shoe, and she
ruary, presented her with her fourth MVP trophy T H E I R C H A I R S U P T O O .’ couldn’t give them an an-
in September, and shared an emotional embrace swer. Now she’s motivated to
with her on the court after she clinched the title. make sure such a gap never
The 6-ft., 9-in. big man serves as her defensive happens again. “When I have these seats at the
foil in workouts, forcing Wilson to take more dif- table,” says Wilson, “I’m clearing space for peo-
ficult shots than she ever would against smaller ple to bring their chairs up too.”
WNBA competition. (She’d practiced, for example, Nike’s A’One commercial features young Black
that Game 3 fadeaway many times with Adebayo.) girls playing a clapping game, dancers from Bene-
He sometimes takes things a bit too far. She’ll dict College, an HBCU in Wilson’s hometown, and
S T E P H E N G O S L I N G — N B A E /G E T T Y I M A G E S

pump fake, and he’ll jump by her. But his quick- scenes from a Black church, all celebrating Wil-
ness and height allow him to recover and still con- son’s roots and Black Southern culture. “Nike kind
test her shot from behind. “I’m just like, ‘No one in of lost its funk,” says Wilson. “We kind of fell into
our league can do that,’” says Wilson. “Well, me, this, like, cookie-cutter ‘We’re just gonna push
maybe. I get mad at times because I’m just like, shoes. We’re just going to do this and get out of
‘OK, now be a WNBA player. Don’t do that.’” the way.’ No.”
“She failed to mention,” says Adebayo, “that I’ll When asked whether she agreed, Karie Con-
block that sh-t into the second row.” ner, the company’s vice president and general
69
THLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE OF THE YEAR • ATHLETE

manager of global basketball, said, “We want our

athletes to push us every time that we come to-
gether and co-create our product. So I appreci-
ate her pushing us.” On its May 6 release date, the
A’One Pink Aura sold out on [Link] in three
minutes. Nike says the shoe also sold out in stores
in the greater China and Europe, Middle East, and
Africa regions.
This performance spoke volumes about the
WNBA’s marketing potential, even in the face of
adversity. As a majority-Black, socially progressive
league with a strong LGBTQ+ presence, it has al-
ways been a troll target. This season, some right-
wing influencers cheered fans who threw sex toys
on the court at games. Donald Trump Jr. made light
of these incidents, posting a doctored image of his
father throwing one from the roof of the White
House. Picking on the league has won political
points before. maga is coming for The wnba,
screamed a September headline on Politico.
Wilson seems unfazed. “We’ve been told to
make sandwiches and get in the kitchen for the
longest,” she says. “If we can get through bully-
ing of those types, I don’t think bullying is going
to ever shake us.”
More front of mind for Wilson and her col-
leagues is money. In September, Minnesota Lynx
star Napheesa Collier made seismic waves when
she called out WNBA commissioner Cathy Engel-
bert for comments she allegedly made to Collier
in February, including that Clark “wouldn’t make
anything without the WNBA platform” and that WILSON IS THE for 2026. She wants to improve her ball handling,
players “should be on their knees thanking their FIRST WNBA so she can initiate the Aces offense more often
lucky stars” for the media-rights deal she secured. and dribble more freely on the fast break. “Just
P L AY E R T O W I N
At a press conference, Engelbert denied making another weapon and an element that I can add to
the comment about Clark; when asked about the M V P, D E F E N S I V E my game that puts the defenders on their heels,”
“lucky stars” remark, she responded: “There’s a P L AY E R OF says Wilson. Hammon endorses this approach: she
lot of inaccuracy out there through social media says the Aces score an extra point per possession
THE YEAR,
and all this reporting ... and I will tell you I highly when Wilson brings the ball up the floor.
respect the players.” AND FINALS I ask Wilson how many more championships
“I only know Cathy by when she hands me tro- MVP IN THE she has in her. “I think I can do three more,” she
phies,” says Wilson. “If that’s her true self, thank you SAME SEASON
says. Jordan, perhaps not coincidentally, also won
for showing that. Thank you for saying those things. six. After Vegas won the title, she was asked about
Because now we see you for who you are, and now the comparison to Jordan and seemed surprised.
we’re about to work even harder at this negotia- Now she has warmed to it. Air Jordans. A’Ones.
tion.” (A league spokesperson declined to comment North Carolina. South Carolina. The two striking
further.) With franchise values soaring, media- photos of Finals excellence. They both stick their
rights deals richer, and viewership increasing— tongues out when performing on the court.
the WNBA is expanding to Portland, Ore., Toronto, Sure, Wilson is probably a friendlier team-
Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia in upcoming mate. But locker-room decorum aside, it’s not far-
years—the players are seeking a bigger portion of fetched. “That right there is everything I want,”
a growing revenue pie. “We’re in a league where says Wilson, about joining the Jordan conversa-
they’re like, ‘Oh, be happy you got private planes,’” tion. “Give me rings. Let me take the picture and
says Wilson, who made $200,000 in salary this really show off who I am. I don’t want to have to be
K A N YA I W A N A F O R T I M E

season. (The NBA MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, somebody that’s like, ‘Yep, I’m A’ja Wilson, every-
signed a $285 million contract extension this sum- body.’ I could also hold this aura and impact where
mer.) “No. That was just scratching the surface.” everyone’s like, ‘Oh no, that’s A’ja Wilson.’ And I
Lockout or not, Wilson plans on prepping hard don’t have to say a word.” □
70 Time December 29, 2025
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NTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR •

MOVIE BY MOVIE, THE ACTOR HAS CRAFTED A

H O L LY WO O D CA R E E R T H AT ’S BU I LT T O L A S T —

EVEN IN AN INDUSTRY DEFINED BY CHANGE

BY STEPHANIE ZACHAREK / LOS ANGELES

AT 15, LEONARDO DICAPRIO SAT DOWN WITH A

pile of rented VHS tapes and gave himself a crash
course in movie history. He’d recently, and mirac-
ulously, landed his first major movie role, playing
opposite Robert De Niro, and figured he’d better
brush up on the classics, fast. He watched film
after film, but no performance awed him more
than the one James Dean gave in Elia Kazan’s 1955
East of Eden, as Cal Trask, the rebellious son of a
disapproving, rigidly principled, Bible-thumping
father. Craving attention, he’s a cutup, a jittery
postadolescent clown, a kid perpetually show-
ing off on the monkey bars; if only his yearning
could be seared right out of him, the way a teen-
ager burns off calories. Dean’s Cal is simultane-
ously self-protective and exposed—the tenderness
he needs is elusive, a nameless butterfly heartbeat
he can hear in the dark but can’t get close to.
DiCaprio could hardly believe the depth of
Dean’s onscreen vulnerability. As he says now,
“Performances like that, that’s what’s intriguing
to me. Showing that or exploring that, and not hav-
ing that hardened shell.” Could he do that? Could
he be that? By that point Dean had already been
gone for 35 years, leaving behind only three cred-
ited film roles. And still, he’d unwittingly made an
investment in the future of movies, and in an actor
he’d never meet. As moviegoers or performers—or
both—we have no way of knowing where ghosts
will lead us, or of measuring their generosity.
DiCaprio, now 51, has built a career many of his
peers would envy. In that first film, 1993’s This Boy’s D ICA PR IO
Life, adapted from Tobias Wolff ’s memoir, he played PH O T O GRA PH ED
young Toby, who’s nearly broken by the casual cru-
IN LOS ANGELES
elty of De Niro’s character, a nightmare stepdad
who lives by a code of hothead masculinity. At the ON O C T. 30
• ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YE

PHOTOGR APHS BY GEORDIE WOOD FOR TIME

NTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR •

time, virtually no one who saw this performance October day when he’s recovering from pneumo-
could believe this kid, his juvenile-delinquent nia, no less—he explains why he cares so deeply
swagger tempered by quizzical boyishness—he de- about One Battle After Another. “I’ve been thinking
fined that fuzzy, confusing space between almost- a lot about how often there have been truly original
a-man and still-just-a-kid so purely that you felt story ideas like this, with no link to anything his-
you were suffering through it yourself. Hollywood torical, no past characters, no genre, no vampires,
knew what it had: DiCaprio was offered what no ghosts, no anything,” he says. “It was somewhat
would have been life-changing money—certainly risky for the studio to take this on, and what they’re
for a kid who’d been brought up modestly, as he banking on, I think, is the appeal of Paul’s storytell-
had, often in rough L.A. neighborhoods—to ap- ing and the sort of fierce originality of his process.”
pear in the Disney comedy Hocus Pocus; instead, It’s not lost on DiCaprio that One Battle is also
he played a mentally impaired teenager in Lasse about having something at stake, a core idea that
Hallstrom’s ardently unsentimental independent seems to resonate with audiences in our precari-
coming-of-age drama What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. ous world. In addition to being a wily, entertain-
DiCaprio, who has been nominated for seven ing comedy, the movie suggests that it’s essential
Academy Awards and won one, has a knack for to have principles to cling to. “It’s about human
making the seemingly wrong choice that turns out beings in a world where we all feel stifled to say
to be completely right—perhaps just another way what we believe or stand for something, because,
of saying he has good instincts and he knows when you know, it’s a scary world out there.”
to follow them. He works with people he trusts; he DiCaprio makes a wholly believable dad, a char-
invests in projects he believes in. But there are in- acter shaped, he says, by talking to Anderson about
tangible factors too: he has a face we don’t tire of his “fear of the future for his children, what it’s like
looking at. More than 30 years into a career built on for him to be a father in the world that we live in,
making largely unpredictable bets, audiences still and what humanity and politics in the world are
want to see him, maybe more now than ever—even going to be like for his offspring.” He loved work-
as a washed-up revolutionary with Iron Butterfly ing with Infiniti, he says; she made it easy for him
facial hair, the character he plays in Paul Thomas to slip into the role. “You go, ‘Oh yeah, I’d stand in
Anderson’s shaggy-dog father-daughter odyssey front of anything for this person,’” he says. “She’s
One Battle After Another. just so incredibly good-hearted and sweet you
DiCaprio’s Bob Ferguson is now middle-aged want to protect her.” And
and has gone into hiding. Even more importantly, working with DiCaprio, In-
he’s a single dad, devoted to his teenage daugh- ‘IF YOU’RE THE STAR finiti felt not only that sense
ter Willa, played by newcomer Chase Infiniti. Like of protection, but a warmth
most dads, Bob is out of touch with kids today; as and generosity she wasn’t
Willa heads out with friends, he grills her about OF A MOVIE, NOT TO prepared for. “I mean, he’s
where she’s going and who she’s going with. In Leonardo DiCaprio, so it’s
the old days, Bob could be set on fire by the lat- a no-brainer that he’s pas-
est cause. Now that flame is just a flicker, and sionate about the craft,” she
MENTION A VERY BIG MOVIE
he spends his days dressed in a layabout’s plaid says by phone from London.
grandpa bathrobe, smoking weed. But there’s “But getting to see his exper-
still some fight in him; it’s merely taken a differ- tise up close and just observe
ent form. His fierceness, driven by the need to pro- S TA R . . . Y O U R B E H AV I O R him, and then to find out on
tect his child, is the motor of a movie that people top of it that he’s a very kind
have continued to see (and talk about) for months and genuine person.” He
after its September release. INFORMS E V E R Y T H I N G .’ was, she says, the perfect
You could argue, of course, that people love person to learn from. “It was
talking about most of the movies DiCaprio has my first film set, and I didn’t
—Paul T homas An d e rson
starred in, from Titanic to The Wolf of Wall Street know what to expect. And
to Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. What does it he would guide me in any
mean to be the actor of the moment, one moment way he could and offer advice. But also just him
after another? And maybe the bigger question is, being there, making himself just a person to have
How does anyone pull it off? DiCaprio may have a conversation with, about anything—it was such
figured it out better than most. And still, he refuses a beautiful thing.”
to pretend he has the answers. When One Battle After Another opened, all the
beard-stroking box-ofce experts tsk-tsked loudly
DiCaprio Doesn’t exaCtly shy away from in- about how it wasn’t “on track” to recoup what it
terviews, but he does fewer than you might think. had cost. As it turned out, though, the film has
And this time, when we sit down to talk—on an done just fine: by mid-November it had made more
74 Time December 29, 2025
• ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YE

than $200 million worldwide—no small feat in a ultimately brought together by the late Adam Som- DICAPRIO AS
here-today, streaming-tomorrow theatrical-release ner, a first assistant director who’d worked with B O B F E R G U S O N,
climate, especially for an original movie clocking each of them on separate projects. Anderson knew
ON THE RUN
in at nearly three hours. they’d get along; he just didn’t know how well, or
Beyond dollars and cents, the more people the degree to which DiCaprio would set the tone IN ONE B AT T L E
talk about a picture, the more likely it is to have a on set. “If you’re the star of the movie, not to men- AFTER ANOTHER
long life in the cultural memory. Anderson wrote tion a very big movie star and a big movie star for a
the script using oddball-genius novelist Thomas very long time, your behavior informs everything.
Pynchon’s 1990 Vineland as an inspiration. It’s a That gives an indication to the crew of what kind
comedy with grim underpinnings, set in a society of film they’ve signed up for,” Anderson says. “His
where violence seems to be the only answer. But leadership means his presence, his availability, his
it’s also exhilaratingly weird: Where else are you unfussiness. It’s that simple. There’s no bullsh-t.”
going to find a group of rebel nuns known as the Promotion may not be any actor’s favorite part
Sisters of the Brave Beaver, or see Benicio del Toro of the filmmaking process, but especially for some-
as a cooler-than-ice-cream martial-arts instruc- one who generally shies away from it, DiCaprio
tor named Sensei Sergio St. Carlos? DiCaprio seems completely at ease with this one. He’s a
sees the appeal of One Battle not just as its star, person who still believes in movies and what they
but also as a guy who goes to the movies himself. can mean to people—and he knows the effect they
(Yes, he goes—all the time, he says.) “I just love have isn’t always immediate. All of these are rea-
that it’s such a conversation piece,” he says. “In sons DiCaprio has worked so hard to promote this
my community, people like talking about it, and movie, from appearing in TikToks (with Infiniti
that’s one of the reasons you make movies. At the as “director”), to participating in dual Q&As with
end of the day it’s like, ‘Wow, this maybe had a Anderson, to showing up, with co-star del Toro,
little effect on people.’” on Jason and Travis Kelce’s popular New Heights
COURTESY WARNER BROS.

To make a movie as audaciously strange, and podcast. It’s worth noting, again, that One Battle
as risky, as One Battle After Another, a director After Another represents the sort of financial risk
needs a star who’s on his wavelength. Anderson few studios are willing to take these days. And if no
had long wanted to work with DiCaprio. It was just film is easy to make, this one came with particular
a matter of finding the right project. The two were challenges. “We shot over nine months, over 100
75
NTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR •

From left: This Boy’s Life, 1993;

Romeo + Juliet, 1996; Titanic, 1997

THE MANY
LIVES OF LEO

days,” Anderson says. “If that doesn’t make you types. Rambunctious from the start, he was fred
cranky, then I don’t know what will. So it’s great from Romper Room for slapping the camera, an in-
that we’re all still sort of in love with each other.” auspicious show-business entrée if ever there were
one. Later, he watched as his stepbrother landed
PeoPle who care about movies, even as they a few commercials; he wanted to do that too, but
watch the viewing experience become eroded by became frustrated when no agent would represent
the popularity of streaming, often wonder if we him. He fnally landed one at age 12, and at that
have any real movie stars left. DiCaprio is as close point, he says, he became his own stage parent.
as we’ve got. He chooses his roles carefully, while “I was the person telling my dad and my mom, ‘Get
also using his clout—through his production com- me to auditions! We need to do this! Try to pick
pany, Appian Way—to make movies he cares about. me up from school at 4 o’clock!’” He doesn’t come
This is how he was able to swerve away from play- out and say as much, but it’s clear his ambition
ing unthreatening, albeit undeniably charming, was less to become a big movie star than to sim-
heartthrobs like Titanic’s Jack Dawson, or the pen- ply fnd a vocation that would ensure a viable ex-
sive, impulsive Shakespearean swain in Romeo + istence after public school in L.A., which he hated.
Juliet. Those were great roles for a young actor. “I was like, ‘This is a bummer! I gotta start thinking
But DiCaprio entered new territory—you might about what I want to do for work immediately.’”
call it the beginning of his great, middle era—with DiCaprio landed a role on the sitcom Growing
his role as messed-up megacapitalist and onetime Pains; then he needed to be freed from his contract
Hollywood charmer Howard Hughes in The Avi- to appear in This Boy’s Life. Mercifully, it worked
ator. From that point, he rushed toward, rather out. At frst, when he’s asked about what it was like
than away from, characters who are more com- to grow up in the movie business, he says he doesn’t
plex, maybe even close to reprehensible, than think he did. Then he remembers: Of course he did.
they are likable. Whether he’s playing the dazzled Before he fully knew what he was doing, he may
and dazzling social climber Jay Gatsby, or Killers of have horsed around on set a little too much. But
the Flower Moon’s Ernest Burkhart, a white man in soon he learned the importance of professionalism:
post–World War I Oklahoma who, at the behest of “What I remember most about that age is people
his scheming uncle, attempts to murder his Osage underestimating you and your ability to compre-
wife, he fnds the subtlest and most powerful ways hend what needs to be done.” He recalls times when
of zeroing in on the murkier corners of masculine flmmakers would assume he couldn’t understand
fragility. In this way, he wields influence like no certain complexities of performing. He’d think, “I
other movie star: it’s the chiaroscuro textures he’s get it, I get it. Speak to me like an adult.”
seeking, rather than the most flattering light. If DiCaprio never set out to be a huge star,
How do you prepare for a career like that? The there’s no way around it: he’s one now. He admits
short answer, maybe, is that beyond being alive to he hasn’t entirely fgured out how to navigate the
the world around you, you can’t. Growing up, he choppy waters between maintaining his privacy
would try to crack his parents up by impersonating and being a public fgure whose life is up for scru-
their friends, many of them counterculture hippie tiny. “It’s been a balance I’ve been managing my
76 Time December 29, 2025
• ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YE

The Aviator, 2004; The Great Gatsby,

2013; The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013

whole adult life,” he says, “and still I’m not an ex- placing some of his hope in innovation: “God
pert. I think my simple philosophy is only get out willing, with our different political shifts, there
there and do something when you have something is going to be a way that technology figures out
to say, or you have something to show for it. Other- something cheaper or something that will stop us
wise, just disappear as much as you possibly can.” from burning fossil fuels at the rate that we have.”
He admits that even though the early success of The key, maybe, is that DiCaprio cares about
Titanic bought him freedom, he also found the at- science and hope in equal measure. In early No-
tention intense and overwhelming; he was sure vember, he spoke at his friend Jane Goodall’s fu-
people were sick of him. And he began to think neral: “When most of us think about environ-
about how to survive in a line of work he loves. mental issues, we tend to dwell on destruction
“I was like, OK, how do I have a long career? Be- and loss,” he said. “And I’ll
cause I love what I do, and I feel like the best way admit it’s something I al-
to have a long career is to get out of people’s face.” ways struggled with myself.
‘I THINK ANYTHING But Jane led with hope, al-
EvEn if acting is one of the purest forms of ways. She never lingered in
expression we have, it still needs to be part of a despair. She focused on what
greater scheme of human interaction, and Di- THAT IS GOING TO BE could be done. She reminded
Caprio cares about the world outside his own us that change begins with
sphere. He produced and narrated the 2007 docu- compassion, and that our hu-
mentary The 11th Hour, about the dire future faced AU T H E N T I C A L LY T H O U G H T manity is our greatest tool.”
by our planet, and his commitment to global en- Humanity is something
vironmental issues hasn’t waned. In 2021, he DiCaprio thinks a lot about.
joined with a group of experienced conservation He acknowledges the role
OF AS ART HAS TO COME
scientists to found Re:wild, dedicated to working AI might play in the fu-
alongside Indigenous people and local communi- ture of movies, and while
ties to preserve and protect vital ecosystems. “It he mourns the fact that tal-
was alarming 10 years ago, and now we’re in a situ- F R O M T H E H U M A N B E I N G .’ ented and experienced peo-
ation where basically, we’re at the tipping point. ple could lose their jobs be-
Everything that scientists have predicted is almost —L e on ard o DiCap rio
cause of it, he isn’t ready to
happening like clockwork,” he says, pointing out write off the possibilities just
the massive wildfires that have affected the world, yet. “It could be an enhance-
including his own home turf of Los Angeles. He ment tool for a young filmmaker to do something
wants to do what he can to help, which is where we’ve never seen before,” he says, though it’s clear
E V E R E T T C O L L E C T I O N (6)

Re:wild comes in, with its goal of “making Indig- the word enhancement is critical. “I think anything
enous people the stewards of the land, protecting that is going to be authentically thought of as art
ecosystems as a way to mitigate climate [change], has to come from the human being. Otherwise—
to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, to pro- haven’t you heard these songs that are mashups
tect biodiversity, to protect nature.” He’s also that are just absolutely brilliant and you go, ‘Oh my
77
NTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR • ENTERTAINER OF THE YEA

God, this is Michael Jackson doing the Weeknd,’ or

‘This is funk from the A Tribe Called Quest song
“Bonita Applebum,” done in, you know, a sort of
Al Green soul-song voice, and it’s brilliant.’ And
you go, ‘Cool.’ But then it gets its 15 minutes of
fame and it just dissipates into the ether of other
internet junk. There’s no anchoring to it. There’s
no humanity to it, as brilliant as it is.”
It’s not surprising that music should come up
in the conversation. Isn’t acting a little like music,
a mode of communication that uses words as tools
yet also goes beyond them? DiCaprio says he loves
old blues (Blind Willie McTell, Blind Lemon Jef-
ferson, Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Blake—“A lot
of blind guys,” he says), but also the Ink Spots, the
Mills Brothers, and Johnny Mercer (“I like that sort
of World War II–era harmony. It keeps me calm and
chill”). He’s a huge Django Reinhardt fan, he says.
“But then, there’s Al Green and Stevie Wonder.”
He could go on. He’s not thinking about the clock.
The most surprising thing about Leonardo Di-
Caprio is how funny he is, and how, despite tak-
ing his work very seriously, he doesn’t seem to take
himself very seriously at all. Has he ever been star-
struck? A lot, he says, citing his first encounters
with Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton, who starred
with him in Marvin’s Room, as examples. He was
awed by them both, but he loved Keaton especially.
“She had the most incredible laugh,” he says. “It
would echo through the entire set, and she made
you feel like the funniest person in the world. I
mean, burst-out-loud laughing. I’ll never forget it.
I kind of lived to make her laugh every day on set,
because it was so infectious. She was incredible.”
Like many actors, Keaton also directed, and
while DiCaprio has said he doesn’t aspire to do so,
he gently sidesteps the question in our interview.
He does, however, have ideas about what the fu-
ture of filmmaking will look like: His take is that DICAPRIO IS and more like the unguarded, open-faced kid of
we have no idea what’s coming, and we shouldn’t G R AT E F U L FOR This Boy’s Life, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, or
try to predict it. “I was just thinking the other day, I Romeo + Juliet. His eyes, though, are definitely
HIS POSITION IN
wonder what the next most shocking thing is going movie-star blue, Peter O’Toole blue—big-screen
to be in cinema. Because so much has been done T H E I N D U S T RY : blue. They’re a symbol of everything we stand to
that has moved the needle, and some of these di- “I’M VERY LUCKY lose as our screens get smaller and smaller.
rectors are so talented right now and doing such James Dean slipped away from us even before
TO BE ABLE TO
a multitude of different things at the same time,” we could fully grasp what he meant. DiCaprio, on
he says. “What’s going to be the next thing that FINANCE MY the other hand, has stuck around. We’ve had the
rattles people and shocks people cinematically?” MOVIES AND pleasure of first watching him grow up onscreen,
DiCaprio has talked for an hour, pneumonia be THEN GET TO
before growing into roles of extraordinary emo-
damned, answering every question as clearly and tional complexity and delicacy—roles that con-
D ISA PPEA R .”
carefully as he can. If he’s occasionally evasive, he’s front various visions of adult masculinity, suggest-
so subtle about it that his digressions end up be- ing the grand range of what men can be, including
coming answers in themselves. He almost seems how they can fail themselves and others. He built
eager to please, not in an ingratiating way, but as a future on what Dean left behind and became a
a means of making sure the job at hand is done movie star in the process, but the kid who begged
right; he’s not going to be the guy who gums up his parents to get him to auditions lives on. All he
the works. He comes off as relaxed and unfussy, in ever wanted to be was an actor. —With reporting
some ways almost remarkably unlike a movie star, by Simmone Shah □
78 Time December 29, 2025
 PROMOTION BY

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REAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE

WHAT STARTED AS

A PASSION PROJECT

BECAME A GLOBAL

P H E N O M E N O N

PHOTOGR APH BY POYEN CHEN FOR TIME

YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROU

BY ELIZA BERMAN

JUST AFTER LUNCHTIME ON A SAT-

urday in November, a sea of purple
braids bobs in unison, barely clear-
ing the tops of the movie-theater
seats behind them. The high-pitched
voices emerging from the violet-
coiffed children sing softly at first,
crescendoing as the animated char-
acter they’re dressed as bares her
soul: “No more hiding/ Now I’m
shining/ Like I’m born to be!” But
it’s not just the kids whose attention
is rapt. When the next song begins,
a father announces, “This one’s my
favorite,” and a few minutes later is
telling his restless little one they can’t
leave yet. “No,” he says, pointing at
the animal sidekicks onscreen. “This
is really funny.”
The scene at this Brooklyn the-
ater, during the second sing-along
event staged since Netflix released
KPop Demon Hunters on June 20,
laid bare what has made the movie
the streamer’s most watched title of
all time. Not since Frozen in 2013 has
an animated film been so omnipresent
in our lives. Backed by an alternately
catchy and profound pop soundtrack,
the 95-minute Seoul-set film tells the
story of a K-pop trio called Huntr/x
(pronounced Huntrix) whose
members, Rumi, Mira, and Zoey, pro-
tect the world from demons who feed
on human souls. They use their music
to strengthen the honmoon, an invis-
ible shield that keeps the demons out.
The secret that lead singer Rumi is hid-
ing beneath her couture ensembles—
that her skin bears the patterns of her
demon father—gives way to a nuanced
message of self-love over shame.
The movie’s appeal seems self-
evident in retrospect: cool girls in
sick costumes, singing full-throated
anthems about self-acceptance that
also happen to be instant earworms,
matched by inventive, vibrant visuals.
And all those elements floated in on
REAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE

the still rising wave of Korean cultural exports en- before its release. Similarly, the fruit of Netflix’s
joying global popularity, from BTS to Blackpink, “unprecedented” October deal with Mattel and
Parasite to Squid Game. Hasbro to produce branded toys and games won’t
But its success was hardly inevitable. KPop hit shelves until months after the holidays. It’s not
Demon Hunters is an original story at a time of for lack of trying, says Lin. “The buyers felt like it
conservative reliance on familiar IP. It’s an ani- was too niche.”
mated film at a moment when nonfranchise ani-
BY THE “Niche” is a comically quaint descriptor now.
mation is flagging at the box office. (Elio, released NUMBERS Says Lin: “I don’t think anyone in the world will
in theaters the same day Demon Hunters hit Net- not know what KPop Demon Hunters is.”
flix, had the lowest opening weekend in Pixar his-
tory.) It leans heavily on specific cultural references
and lacks bankable headlining stars. And it was
no small risk, with a reported budget of around
325
MILLION
AFTER OVER A DECADE in animation, director
Maggie Kang figured that if she wanted to work on
a film rooted in Korean culture, she might have to
$100 million. While everyone who had a part in Views in its
pitch it herself. KPop Demon Hunters is so personal
making it hoped it would find its audience, none first three
that her daughter was named for its protagonist—
foresaw just how big it would become. months, hitting
no, not the other way around—and Kang cast her to
In the 10 years since Netflix began releasing the top 10 in 93
voice young Rumi in the film. (She now proudly in-
original films, not one has been as watched as much troduces herself with the origin story for her name.)
countries
as Demon Hunters, which surpassed 325 million For Kang, the demons of the movie’s title pre-
views in its first three months and hit the top 10 ceded the K-pop element, despite the fact that
in 93 countries. Its soundtrack reached No. 1 on the she’s a self-professed “OG K-pop fan.” As a kid,
Billboard 200 and has been streamed 8.3 billion
times. Breakout hit “Golden” spent 17 weeks atop
the Billboard Global 200 chart.
17
Weeks
she’d been terrified of the jeoseung saja of Korean
folklore, Grim Reaper–esque ushers into the after-
life. At first, they seemed too scary a concept for
As chairman of Netflix film Dan Lin explains, “Golden” spent a kids’ movie, but her then-future niece’s love of
“I care about: Has it cut through to the culture? at No. 1 on Maleficent made her reconsider, and those mytho-
Are people talking about it? Do they want to see the Billboard logical figures became the Saja Boys: demons dis-
a live experience? Do they want to see a sequel? Global 200 guised as an impossibly hot boy band intent on
Do they want to buy a costume?” The answer to chart stealing Huntr/x’s fans, one soul at a time.
all of these is yes. In August, the first time Net- While the crux of the story hasn’t changed since
flix showed the movie in theaters, it sold out more its inception, the film began with a smaller bud-
than 1,300 screenings across three continents and
marked the streamer’s first time leading the box
office, with an estimated $18 million. Reports of
8.3
BILLION
get, darker tone, and slightly older-skewing tar-
get demo. It was Kristine Belson, president of
Sony Pictures Animation—which produced the
a sequel surfaced in November, the same week film before selling the rights to Netflix in 2021—
Times the
the movie landed three Grammy nominations in- who persuaded Kang to aim bigger and brought
cluding Song of the Year, and on Dec. 8 it received soundtrack has Chris Appelhans, who directed 2021’s China-set
three Golden Globe nominations. been streamed Wish Dragon, on board to direct alongside her.
Celebrities from Andy Samberg to Kelly Clark- KPop Demon Hunters counts among its influ-
son declared their love for the movie, while Fortnite ences the choreographed gloss of K-pop visuals,
began allowing players to purchase Demon Hunt-
ers “skins” for their characters. Novak Djokovic
danced to its infectious track “Soda Pop” after win-
1
Spot attained
the softly lit feel of Korean dramas, and the hand-
drawn style of Japanese anime.
Then there’s the title. “We constantly thought
ning a quarterfinal match at the U.S. Open. Par- by “Your Idol,” to ourselves that we would think of a cooler title,”
enting guru Dr. Becky Kennedy created a guide to the highest by recalls Appelhans. “I think it ended up serving us
watching the movie with kids and promoted it to a K-pop boy well. It invites the question of: ‘What in the world
her 3.4 million Instagram followers. Cast members band in U.S. do these two things have to do with each other?’”
performed on The Tonight Show and in the Macy’s Spotify history, Still, when Demon Hunters was released, Appel-
Thanksgiving Day Parade and made a surprise ap- surpassing hans was not prepared for “the intensity of the
pearance on Saturday Night Live, in a sketch in BTS’s feedback, the speed and the specificity of it.”
which host Bad Bunny berates his friends for fail- “Dynamite” Scrolling on Instagram and TikTok in the first 48
ing to grasp the movie’s brilliance. hours, he saw Saja Boys thirst traps, but also “com-
Google’s top five most-searched Halloween cos- ments with 100,000 likes about identity and fame
tumes were all characters from the film—only most and generational trauma,” he recalls. “I remember
of this year’s trick-or-treaters weren’t sporting just texting with Maggie: ‘Whoa. The people who
Netflix-sanctioned costumes. In order for that to have found this really, really love it.’”
have happened, the licensed manufacturing part- SOURCES: NE TF LIX ,
The music credits for KPop Demon Hunters
ners would have had to bet on the movie months B I L L B O A R D, S P O T I F Y read like a who’s who of the K-pop world. There’s
82 TIME December 29, 2025
YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROU

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE Black Label co-founder Teddy Park, who has
produced and co-written for Blackpink, and pro-
FOR HUNTR/X AND ITS FANS ducer Lindgren (BTS, behemoth girl group Twice).
Songwriter Ejae, who provides the singing voice
for Rumi and co-wrote five of the album’s seven
Rei Ami, Ejae,
original songs, spent more than a decade as a
trainee for SM Entertainment before turning to
and Audrey
songwriting. She, in turn, recruited fellow song-
Nuna make
writer Andrew Choi, who was ultimately cast as
appearances on the singing voice of Saja Boys leader Jinu. (Each
SNL and The member of Huntr/x and the Saja Boys is voiced by
Tonight Show both an actor and a singer.)
It follows, then, that K-pop fans were among the
first to spread the gospel of the movie. They were
joined by members of the anime fandom, which is
estimated to include more than 1 billion devotees
outside of Japan and China, with a global market of
approximately $23 billion in 2023. Both fandoms
feature two key ingredients for virality: they are
global and extremely online.
Korean cultural exports, or hallyu, have en-
The cast and joyed a steadily growing audience abroad since the
filmmakers late 1990s. But in recent years, that footprint has
greet fans at a exploded: groups like BTS and Blackpink began
sing-along event incorporating English into their songs and col-
in New York
laborating with the likes of Lady Gaga and Megan
Thee Stallion. Netflix became a prominent home
City; cosplayers
to Korean dramas like Crash Landing on You, an-
meet up at
nouncing plans to invest $2.5 billion in the country
Comic Con from 2023 to 2027. (KPop Demon Hunters enlisted
K-drama stars like Business Proposal’s Ahn Hyo-
seop, who voices Jinu alongside Choi, and Squid
Game’s Lee Byung-hun as demon king Gwi-Ma.) To
Kyong Yoon, a professor at the University of British
I M A G E S; C R A I G B A R R I T T — R E E D P O P/G E T T Y I M A G E S; C H A R LY T R I B A L L E A U — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S; F R A N K F R A N K L I N I I — A P
F R O M T O P : W I L L H E AT H — N B C/G E T T Y I M A G E S; R OY R O C H L I N — N E T F L I X /G E T T Y I M A G E S ; T O D D O W YO U N G — N B C/G E T T Y

Columbia and co-author of Transnational Hallyu:

The Globalization of Korean Digital and Popular
Culture, the success of KPop Demon Hunters sig-
nals “a new phase of the Korean Wave.” This latest
surge, he says, is still “controlled by Korean con-
tent creators or industry, but it’s more diversified
and more diasporic.”
Though some uncertainty hung in the air about
how the film would be received in Korea given its
mostly North American production, Ji-young Yoo,
who provides the speaking voice for bubbly rapper
and lyricist Zoey and has spent the fall filming a
project in Seoul, calls the reception there “mind-
Novak Djovokic
blowing.” “Every time I’m out on the street, at least
dances to “Soda
one KPop Demon Hunters song is playing in a store
Pop” after or restaurant. These two guys were jogging down
a U.S. Open the Han River to ‘Takedown.’ There are collabs
quarterfinals with bakeries and ramen brands. It’s like it can’t
win; George possibly get any bigger, and then it does.”
Kittle rocks out The K-pop establishment, too, was quick to
to “Golden”
embrace the film. Twice covered “Takedown” as
the album’s lead single. In July, Jung Kook of BTS
sang along to “Soda Pop” and “Your Idol” during a
livestream and told fans that he cried watching the
83
REAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE

movie. Netflix’s X bio was briefly updated to reflect

the massiveness of this endorsement: “jungkook
watched kpop demon hunters.”
The movie presents a largely favorable depic-
tion of K-pop fandom, revolving around Huntr/x’s
symbiotic relationship with its supporters. “The
way Rumi, Mira, and Zoey receive support from
fans on stage and exchange energy with them really
resonated with us,” Twice members Jeongyeon,
Jihyo, and Chaeyoung told TIME in an email.
“Traveling to different cities, meeting [our fan
group] Once, and feeling that connection gives us
strength.” Kang and Appelhans also aimed to cap-
ture the diversity of the fans, from kids to gym bros
to women who dress in the image of their idols.
But they didn’t shy away from the ways in which
fandom can go too far, as when the fans turn liter-
ally soulless in their obsession with the Saja Boys.
Of course, like any work of art, the project has its
detractors. One critic wrote that the songs sound as that happens maybe once a year (think Sabrina
if they were created by AI. An online commenter Carpenter’s “Espresso”). This is no accident. Ex-
called the story hypocritical for propping up pro- ecutive music producer Ian Eisendrath assembled
tagonists who fight against having their souls cap- a deep bench of producers and a dozen credited
tured, then attempt to “capture the souls of chil- songwriters for the soundtrack. “The directors
dren and sell them merch.” But clearly these are were not interested in your business-as-usual ani-
minority opinions. As Huntr/x’s manager Bobby, mated musical where a character just breaks into
voiced by Ken Jeong, says in the movie, “The in- singing their thoughts,” explains Eisendrath, whose
ternet loves this, and the internet is never wrong.” musical-theater credits include the Broadway pro-
ductions of Come From Away
EjaE, REi ami, and audREy nuna perch in direc- and A Christmas Story.
tor’s chairs at Netflix’s New York City headquar- ‘A L L M Y L I F E I ’ V E B E E N
The intricate construc-
ters on a glum October morning. It’s been less tion of the songs has been the
than 24 hours since Jimmy Fallon broke the news subject of scrutiny on social
to them on camera that the soundtrack had been media. When the acclaimed
certified platinum. T O L D , “ Y O U ’ R E T O O M U C H .” music podcast Switched on
For an on-camera game, they pass around TIME Pop dedicated an episode to
covers featuring musical luminaries—Lauryn Hill, the soundtrack, its co-hosts
Adele, Billie Eilish—ad-libbing snippets of their T H AT T O O - M U C H N E S S G AV E observed how the notes in
songs. When they get to Beyoncé, they sheepishly the first verse of “Golden,”
acknowledge that they sort of, accidentally, totally about struggling to fit in,
not on purpose broke one of her records when they M E A P L A T I N U M R E C O R D .’ literally don’t fit into the un-
became the first girl group to have a song at No. 1 derlying chords, nor do they
on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks, align with the beat, until the
besting the two weeks Destiny’s Child spent there —Re i Ami chorus about self-acceptance
for “Bootylicious” in 2001. suddenly aligns meaning and
“When we found out about the Destiny’s Child music both sonically and rhythmically.
thing ...” Nuna begins sheepishly. “Honestly, the The most stunning musical moment of the film
audacity,” continues Ami. “That was rude of us.” comes at the top of the chorus of “Golden,” when
Kelly, Beyoncé, and Michelle are in good com- Ejae hits a high note of A5. She had made the song
pany when it comes to being eclipsed, or at least intentionally difficult to sing, in thematic agree-
matched, by fictional groups of Kpop Demon Hunt- ment with Rumi’s journey. Then the demos she re-
ers: the album marks the first time since 1995’s corded landed her the singing role, and the onetime
Waiting to Exhale that a movie soundtrack has trainee who’d given up her dreams of performing
had three singles crack the Billboard Top 10, and found herself belting out the most ubiquitous song
the Saja Boys’ “Your Idol” became the highest- of the year.
charting song from a K-pop boy band in the his- “Ejae is cursing herself daily. I don’t know any-
tory of Spotify U.S., surpassing BTS’s “Dynamite.” one else that sings this register,” says Eisendrath.
“Golden” has achieved the kind of pop virality She shrugs off the compliment. “It’s the breathing
84 Time December 29, 2025
YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROUGH OF THE YEAR • BREAKTHROU

be pretty, you have to be skinny. This movie says

it’s OK to not be perfect because not perfect is ab-
solutely beautiful.” Says May Hong, who provides
the speaking voice for Mira, of watching kids re-
ceive this message: “It’s retroactively soothing my
immigrant-child self.”
Adds Ami: “Zoey is very high energy and ex-
citable. Those are the very traits I was told to sup-
press growing up. The stereotypes associated with
Asian women are that we are submissive, docile.
All my life I’ve been told, ‘You’re too much.’ That
too-muchness gave me a platinum record.”

A sequel to KPoP Demon Hunters is report-

edly slated for 2029, which is not to say the de-
mons will go dormant until then. “We hope
there’s other ways we can tell the story,” says Lin.
Netflix is also expected to submit at least one orig-
inal song for the Oscars, in addition to competing
that’s hard,” she says. “And I definitely could not MIRA, RUMI, in the Animated Feature category.
do it without these two,” she says, nodding to- AND ZOEY The filmmakers and cast have many hopes
ward Ami, who sings for Zoey, and Nuna, who for the next installment. “I’d love to see more of
PROTECT THE
sings for the spiky lead dancer Mira. “The song is Rumi’s journey, and to show even more of Korea,”
the pop star here.” WORLD FROM says Cho. “I would love to see Rumi’s lower tones,”
DEMONS WITH jokes Ejae. “Who is her father?” asks Ami. “The
If the musIc is one key element driving the mov- paternity test. I need it now.”
BOTH WEAPONS
ie’s success, the message is another. When Arden KPop Demon Hunters’ influence will likely be
Cho was growing up as a Korean American kid in AND SONG felt in the broader entertainment industry as well.
Texas, her peers often mocked her for the food she In a risk-averse Hollywood, like begets like—one
ate. “Kids would say our food was smelly or weird, big-budget female-oriented action movie that rules
and I carried so much shame about that,” says Cho, the box office proves it’s safe to bet on another. In
who provides the speaking voice for Rumi. “So to this case, that is good news for everything from
now see dishes like kkakdugi, kimbap, seolleong- original animation, at least on streaming, to first-
tang, and naengmyeon come to life, so beautifully time directors like Kang. “It shows that new voices
animated, it means everything.” are welcome,” says Lin.
KPop Demon Hunters does not merely animate Reflecting on the records set by KPop Demon
traditional dishes; the movie captures how Rumi, Hunters, Lin brings up a 2021 movie called Red
Mira, and Zoey sit on the floor to eat them. (“Ko- Notice. Starring Ryan Reynolds and Dwayne John-
rean people don’t really use sofas. They’re just son, it once held the honor of most watched Netflix
there,” says Ahn, who called this one of the most film. Critics described it as “limp and dull” and “a
casually Korean moments in the film.) Outside of $200 million existential crisis in light.” “It’s great
mealtimes, it captures the insides of Hanuiwon that it was so well viewed,” he says, like a parent
(medicine clinics) and the etiquette of public not wanting to single out their less talented child.
bathhouses. “But I think this is pushing it to another level.”
Most of these references go untranslated. That film had global movie stars fighting in
“When you travel to a different city, you don’t al- black-tie attire and fumbling Cleopatra’s lost
ways have a guide that explains everything to you, golden eggs, but it did not have a mold-breaking
but you figure it out,” says Kang. Or as Appelhans approach to each visual frame. It did not have
puts it, “People have been watching Hollywood theaters full of fans belting out lyrics in multi-
stories for 100 years. They watched John Wayne ple languages. And it did not have people of all
movies, and most have not been to Wyoming or ages looking inward at the darkest parts of them-
ridden a horse.” selves and considering bringing them out into the
The movie’s theme of self-acceptance is uni- light. “I get a little emotional every time I think
versal, but it also has a particular resonance for about how many young kids are hearing this mes-
Korean audiences. “I was a K-pop trainee since I sage,” says Yoo. “Maybe the 5-year-olds who are
COURTESY NE TF LIX

was 11,” says Ejae. “It’s a very perfectionist coun- dressing up don’t really think about it that much
try. That can be mentally exhausting. Always hav- now, but I hope they can carry it through the rest
ing to look perfect, have good grades. You have to of their lives.” □
85
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 S I N N E R S: WA R N E R B R O S .; N O U V E L L E VAG U E: J E A N - LO U I S F E R N A N D E Z— N E T F L I X ;
M O : E D D Y C H E N — N E T F L I X ; D Y I N G F O R S E X : S A R A H S H AT Z — F X ; S E V E R A N C E : A P P L E T V

The

moved,
art that

us this year
entertained,
and inspired

87
 BEST BY
OF STEPHANIE
CULTURE ZACHAREK

SENTIMENTAL
4 VALUE

Love, death, real estate: those

four words sum up both the
messiness and the glory of fam-
ily life, and here, Danish Norwe-
gian filmmaker Joachim Trier sur-
veys it all with tender regard.
Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter
Lilleaas play sisters, raised in
a sprawling yet cozy house that
has been in the family for years;
when their mother dies, they’re

1
forced to reckon with the selfish-
ness and self-absorption of their
NOUVELLE
VAGUE BLUE
MOON
3 long-estranged filmmaker father
(Stellan Skarsgard). Houses may
hold families together for many
years, but they’re never the real
glue. What really sustains us is
Motivated by pure affection, veteran indie direc- Few filmmakers can give the person—whether it’s a parent,
tor Richard Linklater tells the story of how Jean-Luc us two fantastic pictures sibling, partner, or whomever—
Godard’s early masterpiece Breathless came to be: in one year, but Richard who always has your back.
it’s 1960 Paris, and Godard (channeled here by mag- Linklater, one of our
netic newcomer Guillaume Marbeck) takes to the most unassuming movie
streets with an American star (the marvelous Zoey craftsmen, has done it.
Deutch) and a raffish French boxer (a limber, sexy Aubry Ethan Hawke gives one
PETER
Dullin) to pull off a sublime act of guerrilla filmmaking.
Breathless changed movies forever, and Nouvelle Vague
of the year’s great perfor-
mances as Lorenz Hart, 5 HUJAR’S DAY
is the ultimate tribute, standing boldly on the side of the onetime writing part-
beauty, of pleasure, of art’s power to keep us going. ner of composer Richard
Rodgers (Andrew Scott). One winter day in 1974, New York
Blue Moon takes place writer Linda Rosenkrantz—here
on a single night: Rodg- played by the always-tuned-in actor

2 AN OFFICER ers’ Oklahoma!, written Rebecca Hall—sat down with her

AND A SPY with his new collaborator friend, photographer Peter Hujar, to
Oscar Hammerstein, has hear him recount every little thing
just become a massive he’d done the previous day. That
Roman Polanski is one as Officer Marie-Georges hit, and Hart is forced interview is the foundation for Ira
of our most controversial, Picquart, the counter- to acknowledge that his Sachs’ quietly radiant Peter Hujar’s
and reviled, living film- intelligence official who friend and colleague has Day. Ben Whishaw plays Hujar as a
makers. He’s also one of fought to free Jewish moved on without him. seductive jokester, keyed into both
our greatest. In his exqui- army captain Alfred Witty, imaginative, and the banality and the cracked glam-
sitely crafted account of Dreyfus (Louis Garrel), brushed with a whisper our of the artist’s life. Hujar died in
the Dreyfus Affair—which wrongly accused of being of melancholy, Blue Moon 1987, of AIDS-related pneumonia;
premiered in Venice in a spy. At a time when our is a perceptive portrait of he found fame only after his death.
2019 but didn’t receive most cherished civic and one of the 20th century’s Sachs’ film is both a great New York
a U.S. release until this moral ideals are threat- finest lyricists. movie and a reminder that so much
year—Jean Dujardin gives ened, an open mind is of the art we love emerges from the
a sterling performance more valuable than ever. margins of everyday life.
88 TIME December 29, 2025
 8 THE
MASTERMIND

Kelly Reichardt’s almost-

a-comedy about a hap-
less art thief in 1970s
Massachusetts is a vivid
portrait of a guy who’s
had everything handed 9 KILL
THE
to him and still manages JOCKEY
to be a lost soul. Josh
O’Connor’s J.B. is an
art-school dropout who You’ll find echoes of Buñuel and
decides, for nebulous early Almodóvar in Argentine film-
maker Luis Ortega’s swingy, surre-
reasons, to steal a quar-
alist neo-noir about a perpetually
tet of valuable paintings.
sozzled jockey, Remo (Nahuel Pérez
As he explains to his
Biscayart), who’s forced into hid-
wife (Alana Haim), every-
ing when he suffers a serious acci-
thing he’s done has been
dent involving the prized racehorse

6
“mostly” for her and
of his mobster boss. After awak-
the kids—his lopsided
ening with amnesia, he dons a fur
reasoning is both gently
ROOFMAN
coat, accented by a fetching head
funny and heartrending.
bandage, and adopts the guise of a
Who wouldn’t buy
woman he calls Dolores—perhaps
anything O’Connor, with
the woman he’s always wanted to
his darling secret smile,
In recent years, we’ve escapee who builds a be. Kill the Jockey is playfully erotic,
tells them? His slippery
been talking a lot about new identity for himself, gorgeous to look at, and often con-
performance holds
a crisis of masculin- finding a new love (played, founding, the kind of inventive
the movie steady. You
ity in American culture, with sunny gravitas, by experiment we used to see all the
never approve of J.B., time at the movies. Thank good-
though no one has been Kirsten Dunst) and a new but you feel something
able to define exactly family in the process. ness someone out there is still
for him even so. making pictures like this.
what that means. Derek Roofman is about all
Cianfrance’s bittersweet the things so many men
romantic comedy, based yearn for, including the
on real-life events, inches basic ability to support clothes they’re wear-
toward an answer. Chan- a family. That used to be ing are ruined, they’re
ning Tatum is superb as a reasonable goal; Roof- forced to dive into a
Jeffrey Manchester, a one- man shows us how elu- charity bin—which
P I C T U R E S; O N E O F T H E M D AY S : A N N E M A R I E F O X — T R I S TA R P I C T U R E S; K I L L T H E J O C K E Y: V I X T K
N O U V E L L E VA G U E : N E T F L I X ; S E N T I M E N TA L VA L U E : N E O N ; R O O F M A N : D AV I R U S S O — PA R A M O U N T

time robber and prison sive it has become. means they spend the
rest of their already-
challenging day in
god-awful day-glo lei-
sure wear. They find
7 SINNERS a pair of rare vintage
Air Jordans they hope

10
to resell, but that plan
Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers, Smoke and goes awry too. Still,
Stack, returning to their Mississippi Delta hometown Keke Palmer and SZA they come out on top,
after surviving World War I and a stint in Chicago. play two scrappy den- making One of Them
They’ve got money to set up a juke joint. Opening night izens of Los Angeles Days—directed by
Lawrence Lamont
is a success, until—or perhaps because?—a trio of
bloodsucking white folk musicians show up at the
ONE OF who have just one day
to scrape together and written by Syreeta
door. Writer-director Ryan Coogler has made a picture THEM DAYS the $1,500 they need Singleton—the kind
that’s alive to the mystery of music, with its power to pay rent on their of movie that miracu-
to both divide and unite. Sinners is gory, seductive, Dead broke? You’re cruddy apartment. lously makes you feel
exhilarating—but it’s wistful too, as if its characters had not alone. In one of the They try to sell their better about every-
glimpsed a possibility of freedom, unity, and happiness year’s most boisterous blood, with disastrous thing. We could all
that, some 100 years later, is still out of reach. and breezy comedies, results. When the use more of those.
89
 BEST BY
OF JUDY
CULTURE BERMAN

THE
3 LOWDOWN
FX

Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin

Harjo has moved on from his opus
about rural, Indigenous teens to
a shaggy, urban neo-noir about a
would-be white savior played by
Ethan Hawke. A ramble through
Tulsa, The Lowdown follows
Hawke’s crusading journalist char-
acter on a perilous investigation
of the apparent suicide of a prom-
inent local family’s black sheep.
Steeped in the dark side of local
history, this is a world populated
by big personalities and packed
with rollicking performances from

1
Hawke, Keith David, Jeanne Tripple-
horn, and Kyle MacLachlan.

DYING FOR SEX

FX
4 MUSSOLINI: SON
OF THE CENTURY
Every terminal diagnosis presents a dramedy, which entrusts the role of MUBI
choice: How will you spend your pre- Molly to Michelle Williams. She’s
cious final days? Faced with meta- radiant opposite Jenny Slate, who In this artfully abrasive drama that traces
static breast cancer, Molly Kochan plays Molly’s fiercely loving best the original Fascist’s ascent, director Joe
fled a sexless marriage, embarked friend and caretaker. A fat slice of Wright shrouds Mussolini’s machinations
on dozens of kinky trysts, and frenzied life, it’s the rare story of in ominous chiaroscuro. The score clangs.
recorded it all in an unfiltered pod- end-stage illness that eschews sac- Arrogant soliloquies dominate the script.
cast whose ragged but revelatory charine inspirational moments in Anchoring it all is Luca Marinelli’s maxi-
mix of tones is preserved in this favor of bracing honesty. malist performance, conjuring so many
familiar strongmen. As he crushes foes,
betrays friends, and sells out his stated
principles, Mussolini demonstrates the
proves immune to an inhumanity of a government whose only

2 PLURIBUS extraterrestrial virus

that fuses the con-
real aim is the consolidation of power.
APPLE TV
sciousnesses of nearly
everyone on earth, the
cinematic Pluribus
Breaking Bad creator
Vince Gilligan swung for
Seehorn (who dazzled
in Gilligan’s Better Call
dares to argue that our
stubborn individuality 5 SEVERANCE
APPLE TV
the stratosphere with Saul) as a curmudgeonly is what makes our spe-
this globe-spanning romantasy author who cies worth saving.
sci-fi thought experi- When a new creator deliv- slump. Back at their
ment: What if world ers a knockout debut desks, Adam Scott’s
peace suddenly broke season, then takes three Mark S. and his co-
out, people everywhere years to release the workers resume inves-
started living in har- follow-up, you worry. So it tigating their sinister
mony, and you were was a wonderful surprise employer. As they dig,
the only grouch among when the second sea- ambitious questions
billions of humans who son of Dan Erickson’s emerge around love
couldn’t be happy about sci-fi drama of bifurcated and death that further
it? Built around a virtuo- consciousness in the Severance’s central
sic, often solo lead per- office defied all expec- inquiry into what makes
formance from Rhea tations of a sophomore us human.
90 TIME December 29, 2025
 SUCH
8 FOREVER
NETFLIX
9 BRAVE
GIRLS
HULU
The teenage experience is
always changing, yet some
universal facts of adoles- Kat Sadler’s British traum-
cence persist. In Forever, edy about a household of
creator Mara Brock Akil unhinged women is the kind
builds a great romance of small, strange, boundary-
around them. Transforming pushing, female-led show
Judy Blume’s 1975 novel that has been disappearing
into a chronicle of young, for a while now, especially
Black love in 2019 L.A., Akil in the U.S. Such Brave Girls’
expands its perspective title characters are a lesbian
beyond the book’s female (Sadler) who can’t shake off
narrator (played beautifully her clueless male fiancé, her
here by Lovie Simone), allow- destructive perennial-side-
ing equal access to her boy- chick sister (Lizzie Davidson),

6
friend (Michael Cooper Jr.) and their desperate, destitute
as well as insight into the mum (Louise Brealey), who
worries of their caring par- will stop at nothing to keep

MO ents. The result is an empa-

thetic portrait of first love
a meal-ticket man. An ocean
away from girl-power propa-
NETFLIX that is wise beyond its pro- ganda, the show is just about
tagonists’ years. as stark and pessimistic and
The final season of Mo Mo has a quintessentially hilarious in its wrongness as
Amer’s semiautobio- American life, rooted in a feminist humor gets.
graphical series begins multicultural community
in Mexico City and ends whose relative harmony
at an Israeli airport. In offers an alternative to
both scenes, his alter ego, immigration hell: a vision
Mo Najjar, endures an of borders transcended,
infuriating encounter with rather than policed. That
DY I N G F O R S E X : S A R A H S H AT Z— F X ; P L U R I B U S : A P P L E T V; M O : E D DY C H E N — N E T F L I X ; T H E P I T T: W A R R I C K PA G E — H B O M A X

a border-enforcement it comes from one of few

bureaucrat. They’re apt Palestinian American
bookends for eight darkly voices with a national
comic episodes that trace platform, at a time of
his Palestinian-refugee such great suffering in
family’s slog through the his homeland, makes it
U.S. immigration system. all the more affecting.

7 THE STUDIO
APPLE TV

Hollywood loves making art about its devolution. This

comedy is TV’s best entry in the subgenre yet, casting
10 THE PITT To the extent that this
series constitutes
co-creator Seth Rogen as a doofy, insecure, idealistic HBO MAX comfort viewing, one
but cowardly studio head trying futilely to make good reason is it indulges
movies amid cutthroat colleagues played by Catherine If ER nostalgia drew equalizer like an emer- the timely fantasy
O’Hara, Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Hahn, and Chase Sui viewers to Noah Wyle’s gency room (at least that no matter how
Wonders. The show is truly funny. It uses A-list guest hospital homecoming, until the bill arrives), broken our society
stars to great effect. Its film homages are on point. what kept us riveted where plagues ranging gets, competent, car-
But what sets The Studio apart is its genuine reverence through its first season from gun violence to ing people will always
for cinema, which cuts through the cynicism about the were storylines that misogyny to a fraying work through their
business of moviemaking that fuels so many similar resonated in the safety net catalyze exhaustion to cure
stories and gives stakes to the characters’ fumbling. present. There is no life-threatening crises. what ails us.
91
 BEST BY
OF LUCY
CULTURE FELDMAN

3 4

O N E D AY, E V E R YO N E A GUARDIAN
WILL HAVE ALWAYS AND A THIEF
BEEN AGAINST THIS
MEGHA MAJUMDAR
OMAR EL AKKAD

In near-future Kolkata, food

What began as a viral tweet is scarce, violence is esca-
became one of the most lating, and Ma is ready to get
widely praised books of out. Her husband has set
the year, the winner of the up a life in Michigan, and all
National Book Award for Ma needs to do to join him
Nonfiction. In October 2023, is attain the three passports
journalist and author Omar and climate-refugee visas

1
El Akkad took to social media that she, her father, and her
to condemn those who had 2-year-old daughter Mishti
nothing to say about the have been approved for and
horrors inflicted by the Israeli get her family on a plane. But
government on the people of someone from the shelter
Gaza in the wake of Hamas’ where Ma works as a man-
Oct. 7 massacre: “One day,
ager has his eyes on her.
HEART dates Sam, but it’s their
when it’s safe, when there’s
no personal downside to call-
Boomba, who has his own

THE LOVER
17th century literature family to think about, envies
ing a thing what it is, when
classmate, Sam’s room- what few comforts Ma has,
LILY KING it’s too late to hold anyone
mate Yash, who becomes and when he breaks into her
accountable, everyone will
a great love—and who, home to steal food and cash,
have always been against
What begins as the more than 20 years later, he unwittingly takes the
this.” The sentiment informed
hormone-fueled story of reappears in Jordan’s trio’s documents—and their
his searing book, both
a campus love triangle, settled life and cracks hope for escape—with him.
memoir and polemic, which
punctuated by bad sex her heart open. Heart the In her National Book Award
weaves together personal
and the heady banter of Lover showcases King’s stories with a sharp analysis short-listed follow-up to
English majors, reveals mastery at rendering inti- of the apathy with which so A Burning, Megha Majumdar
itself to hold far greater macy and its enduring many regard the suffering sets two families on a crash
weight. In Lily King’s impacts, and how little in of people they conveniently course, testing the weight
Heart the Lover, aspiring life and love is truly within designate as “other.” of their morals against the
novelist Jordan initially our control. strength of their love.

novel begins with an

THINGS unnamed protagonist,

2 IN NATURE
MERELY GROW 5 AUDITION
KATIE KITAMURA
a successful actor set
to appear in a play, sit-
YIYUN LI ting down for a tense
dinner in New York City
with a notably younger
In 2017, Yiyun Li’s elder son Vincent died by suicide Katie Kitamura’s Audi- experience of read- man. She’s worried
at the age of 16. Seven years later, her younger son tion resists simple ing it. Which is appro- about how it looks,
James, then 19, died the same way. Li’s memoir Things description—it doesn’t priate, given that Kita- like she might be the
in Nature Merely Grow, a finalist for a National Book fit into our usual mura’s subject is man’s lover or even
Award, finds her mining the experience and meaning framework for what performance itself, his mother. And then
of grief on the page, even as she rejects the concept: a novel should be— the ways in which her husband walks
“I am against the word ‘grief,’ which in contemporary and it hardly gets eas- we try, and often fail, in, raising the stakes.
culture seems to indicate a process that has an end ier to explain, no mat- to inhabit the roles Who is this young per-
point,” she writes. Li is not interested in moving on ter how many times a we’ve been assigned: son, really? Kitamura
from the pain of her extraordinary loss. She endeavors person may attempt spouse, parent, art- explores more than
to understand it, and to carry on nonetheless. to communicate the ist, subject. The one possible answer.

92 IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW MAY BE EXPERIENCING A MENTAL-HEALTH CRISIS, CALL OR TEXT 988 TO REACH THE 988 SUICIDE AND CRISIS LIFELINE
 the impossible Pen-
A MARRIAGE
6 KATABASIS rose stairs to create
AT SEA
SOPHIE ELMHIRST
8 R.F. KUANG
the landscape and
mechanics of her
underworld. Then
she throws two des-
Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, a married couple, were Two postgraduate stu- fantasy quest nar- perate, competi-
hankering for an adventure when they bought and boarded dents in Cambridge rative that gleefully tive students into
a boat in the early 1970s, set for a multiyear voyage from University’s Depart- skewers the lop- its depths to see
England to New Zealand. But nothing could have prepared ment of Analytic sided power dynam- whether they can
them for the harrowing journey that followed. Nine months Magick follow their ics in academia. find their way back
into their mission, a whale sank their vessel, and the recently deceased It’s a campus novel to the land of the
Baileys found themselves adrift on a raft in the Pacific adviser to the after- where the campus is living—and if, along
Ocean, where they would flounder under incredible strain life in hopes of retriev- literally hell. Kuang the way, they might
for 118 days. British journalist Sophie Elmhirst tells the ing his soul. In Kata- consults everything learn something
true story of a couple who survived against the odds, taking basis, R.F. Kuang, from Dante’s Inferno more valuable than
as much interest in the interpersonal dramas that played a Ph.D. candidate to mind-bending what can be gleaned
out between them as in the trials of being lost at sea. herself, conjures a logic concepts like from textbooks.

KING
7 9 OF
ASHES
S.A. COSBY

BALDWIN:
A LOVE STORY Atlanta-based financial adviser Roman
NICHOLAS BOGGS
Carruthers is back in his Virginia hometown
to deal with a number of family crises. His
An intimate look into the pri- father was just in a catastrophic car crash,
vate life of one of America’s his sister is buckling under the pressure of
most celebrated writers, running the family business, and his little
Baldwin: A Love Story finds brother owes a debt to a vicious gang—
connections between the which, Roman quickly realizes, has every-
author’s literary insights thing to do with their father’s “accident.” His
and his many close rela- only choice is to try to make things right, even
tionships, with figures from if he has to do some wrong along the way.
Harlem painter Beauford S.A. Cosby has a talent for lining up dominoes
K I N G : E L O I S E K I N G C L E M E N T S; C O S B Y: D O N A L D J O H N S O N — T H E N E W YO R K T I M E S/ R E D U X

Delaney to Swiss painter and knocking them down in the most unex-
Lucien Happersberger to pected of ways, crafting grisly thrillers that
French artist Yoran Cazac. are as high-velocity as they are rewarding.
Nicholas Boggs spent
decades researching this
thoughtful and well-paced
biography, consulting archi-
val material and even inter-
viewing, after presuming
10 A TRUCE
THAT IS
NOT PEACE
director that her appearance is canceled.
This momentary obstacle, an amalga-
mation of real experiences, becomes
him dead, a crucial surviv- MIRIAM TOEWS a rich, long-term project that sees her
ing player in Baldwin’s life meander through her childhood, the
story. The book is an explo- Miriam Toews’ first book of nonfiction in losses of close family members, her
ration of Baldwin’s identity more than 20 years begins with a fictional- Mennonite background, and more. In a
and a close reading of how ized premise: she is asked, in advance of memoir that’s at once wry, poignant, and
his lived experiences, as a literary festival in Mexico, “Why do you exhilarating, Toews holds her life and her
a writer and traveler, as a write?” And she finds it so impossible to con- creative process up to the light to exam-
Black man in America, and jure an answer that will satisfy the event’s ine the threads that tie them together.
as a romantic, informed his
most indelible writing.

93
 BEST BY
OF JENN
CULTURE PELLY

3
ESSEX
HONEY
BLOOD ORANGE

Dev Hynes made his

name as a consum-
NEW THREATS
4
mate New Yorker—an

1
art-pop synthesist of FROM
the city’s panoply of THE SOUL
RYAN DAVIS & THE
GETTING
sounds—but he grew
ROADHOUSE BAND
up outside London
KILLED in Essex, where he
When Kentucky-bred songwriter
GEESE returned in 2023 to be
Ryan Davis was still playing in
at his mother’s bedside
his previous band, State Cham-
before she died. In the
Three albums in, this pion, the indie-rock legend and
holding pattern of grief,
ecstatic breakthrough Silver Jews front man David
Essex Honey exquisitely
dropped the quartet of Berman—a Gen X hero for listen-
takes stock. Time
23-year-old Brooklyn art- ers obsessed with the fine line
collapses as Hynes
rockers square into the between lyricism and poetry—
transfigures flashes of
eye of hype’s storm. If the called Davis “the best lyricist
youth through poised
coolly calamitous sound who’s not a rapper going.” The
dream-pop, R&B, break-
of Getting Killed is any indi- and death, like “I’m get- promise of that sterling endorse-
beats, and avant-garde
cation, they’ll weather the ting killed by a pretty good ment bloomed this year with
touches. Just as loss
chaos of Geesemania life” or “The Lord has a Davis’ second solo album. The
clarifies the air in every
just fine. High-octane dis- lot of friends/ In the end, twangy underdog dispatches of
room, so every bar here
cord hasn’t gone down he’ll probably forget he’s New Threats From the Soul are
feels vivid and charged.
this easily in decades. In met you before.” Fevered ear candy for fans of creative
Hynes’ stirring melodies

G E E S E : M A R K S O M M E R F E L D ; E A R L S W E AT S H I R T: A R I E L L E B O B B - W I L L I S — A U G U S T: W AT E R F R O M YO U R E Y E S : C O U R T E S Y
his destabilized croon, rave-ups and corporal wordplay, as Davis’ baritone and
sew together styles and
front man Cameron Winter rhythms teeter just on the the band’s down-home loose-
collaborators into a pro-
warbles through irrever- edge of collapse and take ness power behemoth track
found tapestry of elegy,
ent, mimetic lyrics about half a century of New York lengths that might leave you
memory, and growth.
God and taxes, loneliness noise with them. a bit pleasantly bewildered.

at the sun. Robertson

is both a visual art-

2 LUX
5
ist and a mother, and
ROSALÍA her abstract, elemen-
tal art accordingly is
as imagistic as it is
comforting, like dap-
For her third full-length release, the Spanish pop vision- pled light cast breath-
ary sings in 10 languages, collaborates with the London takingly on a wall, or
Symphony Orchestra, and communes with sacred an avant-garde lullaby.
teachings of nuns and female saints. Her immersion
into cross-cultural divinity takes root in vanguard beats,
BLURRR instrumentation—little
more than Robertson’s
Featuring collabora-
tions with cellist and
JOANNE ROBERTSON
searching timbres, and a colossal, operatic voice, attuned luminescent voice fellow Glasgow resi-
to pop iconoclasts like Björk (featured on LUX) and Kate and brittle acoustic dent Oliver Coates on
Bush. Rosalía’s religious inquiries—more art concepts This ambient folk guitar—for maximalist standout tracks, Blurrr
than actual consecration—shape-shift through the sing- album from a fixture of feeling. It’s night music rings out raw expres-
song kiss-off “La Perla” and Sufi-mysticism-inspired “La the U.K. underground that paradoxically sion from a divinely
Yugular,” which samples an archival Patti Smith interview. uses minimalist feels a bit like staring hushed sound.
94 TIME December 29, 2025
 Nirvana. His latest
title brandishes the

6
irony of his early
years to deliver
a comparatively
upbeat though com-
plex work, a shift
brought on by the
promise and anxiet-
DEBÍ TIRAR MÁS FOTOS ies of marriage and
fatherhood. “She
BAD BUNNY found me on the
streets, she vowin’
Pop-wise, 2025 was Bad Bunny’s year. A defining to keep my feet
star of music’s past decade, who has revolution- grounded/ For my
ized pop culture by putting the Spanish language sweet child,” Earl
atop its pantheon—a course on Bad Bunny’s impact raps on the slow-
launched this fall at Yale—the música urbana super- swaying “TOURMA-
nova elected to make his “most Puerto Rican album
ever.” This vivid opus celebrates Puerto Rican rhythms
by bridging reggaeton and Latin trap with the acous-
8 LIVE
LAUGH LOVE
LINE” and roots that
equilibrium into
every note. Coursing
tic sounds of previous generations, like salsa, plena, EARL SWEATSHIRT beneath is some-
bolero, and perreo. Benito put the live instrumentation thing like Earl’s
and joyful hooks of hits like “DtMF” and “Nuevayol” Ten years ago, the rap- I Don’t Go Outside, a tit- free-associative pep
on the world’s stage—soon to take pop culture’s big- per Earl Sweatshirt put ular expression of angst talk to the world
gest platform at the Super Bowl LX halftime show. out I Don’t Like Sh-t, and depression to rival and himself.

9
7
10
IT’S A
BIG UGLY
FUST
BEAUTIFUL IRIS SILVER MIST
PLACE “Oh what country, friends, is JENNY HVAL
WATER FROM this?” sings Aaron Dowdy,
YOUR EYES quoting Shakespeare on The music of Norwegian art-
his kicked-out country jam pop hero and novelist Jenny
This experimental indie riffage (“Nothing’s funnier “Mountain Language.” The Hval is as adventurous as it
missive from the New than a guitar solo,” he question says as much is incisive. Hval’s episodic
York duo of vocalist has said) and Brown’s about his lyrical ambitions songs brim with intertextual
Rachel Brown and multi- deadpan poetics, which (he is a Ph.D. candidate in references, conceptual grist,
instrumentalist Nate approach rapping on the lit) as it does about his crack and spoke-sung experimenta-
Amos is a delightfully highlight “Life Signs,” North Carolina band’s inher- tion, but never stray far from
uncanny soundtrack for Water From Your Eyes is itance of twang, pedal steel, melodic pleasures. Her latest is
fast-walking through the architecting its own defini- and Southern storytelling. inspired in part by a pandemic-
city, contemplating the tion of indisputable cool. Big Ugly’s fiddle-laden drink- era fascination with scent; the
current horror-show reality ing songs are raucous and title references a favored per-
and the fact, despite it all, nuanced, ripping and digni- fume. Hval’s restless melodies
that earth still really is a fied. Like fellow North Carolin- and Proustian lyrics trail ciga-
beautiful place. Accord- ians Wednesday and MJ Len- rette smoke or the fragrance
ingly, Water From Your derman, Dowdy carves of roses toward litanies of
Eyes’ proggy, taut, alt-rock complex new visions into the memory, while deconstructing
bricolage captures a cer- idioms of his upbringing. the nature of stage perfor-
tain existential absurdity. mance, recording technology,
Between Amos’ high-watt and digital existence.
95
 B A C K PA G E

State of the art

As TIME’s creATive direcTor, i’ve
been privileged to work with some
pho-
of the world’s best artists and pho-
tographers in creating thousands of
images for our cover. Their voices
and immense creativity bring TIME’s
iconic red-bordered canvas to life,
and have been critical to our visual
storytelling for more than 100 years.
That won’t change. But while consid-
consid-
ering how to illustrate TIME’s choice
for the 2025 Person of the Year, I did
wonder how AI would create an image
of itself.
Like millions of people over the
past year, I turned to a pair of power-
ful tools, OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Google’s
Gemini 3. What do you look like as a
person? I asked. Or, Create an illustra-
tion using the letters AI. On this page,
you can see a sampling of the results
from those kinds of prompts.
Using AI to create artwork isn’t
without controversy, especially in the
realm of visual journalism. At first,
even though I was just experiment-
ing with the concept, I entered each
prompt with a certain amount of trepi-
dation. A few days in, however, I was
finding the exercise useful. By gener-
ating hundreds of images, I learned a
great deal about how the models pro-
cessed my requests and which requests
delivered the best results. I spent hours
making small tweaks—mainly because
the system wanted to create completely
new images each time. But waiting
with excitement to see what it would
produce, I started to feel as if I were
art-directing it.
We will continue to use TIME’s
cover to showcase the diversity of
human creativity. But the experience
showed me that AI can be a valuable
image-creation tool. I ended up see-
ing it as parallel to a painter’s brush or
a photographer’s lens, the experiment
having reinforced the importance of
human decisionmaking in any “collab-
oration” with AI. That personal vision
remains essential—as is evident in the △
work of artists like Peter Crowther and Images generated using AI
Jason Seiler, who created our two cov- A sampling of cover images created using ChatGPT and
ers for 2025’s Person of the Year. Gemini, from prompts such as “create an image of yourself”
—d.W. Pine and “create an image using the letters AI.”
96 Time December 29, 2025