Unpublished TIME cover suggests AI leaders may be named Person of the Year

An unreleased cover found on TIME Magazine’s web server appears to show that “The Architects of AI” may be selected as the 2025 Person of the Year. TIME is expected to make its official announcement on Thursday.

The image has not been formally released by TIME and was found through an unpublished URL on the magazine’s website. TIME has not confirmed whether it will be the final cover.

The cover features an illustrated or AI-generated recreation of the 1932 photograph “Lunch atop a Skyscraper,” replacing the ironworkers with leading figures in artificial intelligence and the tech industry.

The individuals depicted appear to include Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, AMD CEO Lisa Su, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and Co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI Fei-Fei Li.

TIME’s Person of the Year recognizes an individual or group who had significant influence on world events. For 2025, the magazine has already named YouTube CEO Neal Mohan as CEO of the Year, Leonardo DiCaprio as Entertainer of the Year, A’ja Wilson as Athlete of the Year, and KPop Demon Hunters as Breakthrough of the Year.

Last year, TIME selected Donald Trump as its 2024 Person of the Year.