TIME magazine says just 100 people are now steering the artificial intelligence boom that is reshaping jobs, war planning, and government power in 2026.
Quick Take
- TIME released its fourth annual TIME100 AI list on August 26-27, 2026, naming 100 people it calls the most influential in artificial intelligence.
- The list splits people into four groups: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers, and Thinkers.
- The global cover features tech giants like Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Dario Amodei.
- TIME editors alone pick the names, based on their own judgment, not a public vote or hard data.
- Past lists have drawn criticism for who gets left off or added, including a past snub of Musk that was reversed this year.
Who Made the 2026 Cut
TIME’s editors sorted the 100 names into four groups. Leaders include OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Mark Chen, along with Elon Musk of xAI and Anthropic’s Dario and Daniela Amodei. The global magazine cover shows Altman, Amodei, Jeff Bezos, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, and Marian Croak among others tied to the list.
Big tech companies dominate the roster, but the list also reaches into universities and hospitals. Johns Hopkins professor Suchi Saria made the cut for her work using AI in health care, showing the list stretches past Silicon Valley boardrooms into research labs shaping how AI touches everyday medicine.
How TIME Decides Who Counts
TIME does not run a public vote or use a math formula to build this list. Journalist Ayesha Javed led the selection process this year, working with TIME staff and outside contributors for months to settle on the final 100 names. TIME calls the group people who, “in our opinion,” are driving the biggest AI storylines of the year, a phrase that puts the decision squarely in the hands of a small editorial team rather than any independent measure of technical achievement or public support.
That method means the list works more like a magazine cover than a scoreboard. It highlights who TIME’s staff thinks matters most in AI right now, mixing company founders, government regulators, and academic researchers into one ranked group without disclosing detailed scoring or criteria the public can check for themselves.
A History of Fights Over Who Belongs
TIME’s AI list has sparked arguments over inclusion since it started three years ago. In 2024, TIME left Elon Musk off the list entirely, a decision that drew public criticism, especially since TIME disclosed at the time that its owner runs a venture capital arm with financial ties to companies in the AI space. Musk appears on the 2026 list as a Leader, showing how much can shift between editions.
Social media reaction to the 2026 list also showed how mixed the honorees have become. One widely shared post noted hotel heiress Paris Hilton appearing on the same list as AI researchers like Ilya Sutskever and Dario Amodei, a pairing some called a sign that celebrity and technical achievement now blend together in how the public judges influence.
“If we can make AI make better chips, then those chips can power the next generation of AI models.”
Startup ‘Ricursive Intelligence,’ founded by Azalia Mirhoseini and Anna Goldie, has been building AI tools to do just that: to speed up the chip design process. The company’s… pic.twitter.com/X2hSE6z0RP
— TIME (@TIME) August 27, 2026
The pattern raises a bigger question that goes beyond any single magazine list. When a handful of unelected editors decide which tech executives and researchers get labeled the most powerful people shaping a technology already touching health care, hiring, and national security, the public has little say in who holds that influence or how it gets used going forward.
