‘Architects of AI’ named Time’s Person of the Year for 2025

Time Magazine has named its Person of the Year as “the architects* of AI*”, naming 2025 as the year artificial intelligence “roared into view”.

The issue features a cover story exploring how AI has changed the world over the past year, in “sometimes frightening ways”.

It interviews Nvidia’s* chief executive Jensen Huang, widely dubbed the “godfather of AI”, and AI investors including SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son.

“For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending* the possible, the Architects of AI are Time’s 2025 Person of the Year,” Time said in a social media post.

The magazine said it was deliberate in highlighting the people who “imagined, designed and built AI”, rather than the technology itself, pointing out the actions of those that led to its birth.

While the title is person of the year, from time to time, the publication awards the accolade* to groups and even concepts that it says most shaped the headlines over the previous 12 months.

“We’ve named not just individuals but also groups, more women than our founders could have imagined (though still not enough), and, on rare occasions, a concept: the endangered Earth, in 1988, or the personal computer, in 1982,” wrote Time editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs.

AUSTRALIA IN THE AI AGE
With AI now firmly at the wheel of the future, Australian businesses and schools have to keep pace with the rapidly changing world of technology.

A recent study from Amazon Web Services (AWS) shows 39 per cent of Australian businesses lack the relevant skills to adopt AI at scale yet despite this, more than 90 per cent of surveyed employers in Australia expect their businesses will use AI-powered solutions and tools by 2028.

Further research by Amazon also shows a gap in education when it comes to STEM*. In a survey of 1000 students and 300 teachers, 97 per cent of Australian students said they study STEM in high school, yet 32 per cent have no idea what careers those skills could lead to.

In an effort to fill this void, about 900 girls from Western Sydney came together last week to find out just what they could achieve in a career built on STEM.

In collaboration with Western Sydney University and Camden Council, Amazon hosted a Girls’ Tech Day in Camden for secondary and primary school students. The event gave attendees the chance to participate in a range of exciting interactive workshops and hands-on activities focusing on robotics, music production and mixing, and autonomous* cars. Students also learnt about a wide range of tech careers through female trailblazers who shared their career journeys.

The Sydney event followed a successful Girls’ Tech Day in Melbourne earlier in the year.

Amazon Australia country manager Janet Menzies said it was important to hold the event specifically for girls because women remained under-represented in the industry.

“Our research shows that having a STEM role model makes students 80 per cent more likely to continue studying it, yet many girls simply don’t see themselves reflected in the industry,” Ms Menzies said. “Events like Girls’ Tech Day are necessary because representation matters – when young women see women engineers, data scientists, and tech entrepreneurs in action, they begin to envision themselves in those roles.”

Western Sydney University School of Computer, Data and Mathematical Sciences Associate Professor Anupama Ginige said girls often look for careers in STEM “where purpose meets technology.”

“Careers in digital health, health data analytics, environmental and climate technologies, and assistive tech link STEM directly to caring for people and the planet,” she said. “Many girls are also drawn to education technology, game design and AI‑powered creative fields, where they can teach, design, tell stories and code at the same time, especially when they see visible female role models in those spaces.”

While A for Arts is no longer in the STEM acronym, which used to be referred to as STEAM, Assoc Prof Ginige said the arts hadn’t really disappeared from learning models.

“In practice, most STEM programs still embed communication, creativity, ethics, teamwork and design thinking throughout their units,” she said. “Rather than two separate camps, there is a growing two‑way integration.

“For schools, the opportunity is to make this explicit* through integrated* projects. For example, designing an app, building an interactive exhibit or creating a science communication campaign, so students experience Arts and STEM as complementary* ways of thinking, not a choice between being ‘creative’ or ‘technical’.”

With AI transforming the world, it’s important we keep our critical thinking skills switched on, she said.

“AI users, including teachers and students, need to learn to question AI outputs, check them against other sources and recognise that systems can be wrong, biased* or incomplete, even when they sound confident,” she said. “This goes hand-in-hand with data literacy and ethics, understanding where data comes from, whose perspectives are represented, and what is safe and fair.”

POLL

GLOSSARY

• architects: designers of buildings, but, in this case, refers to the designers of technology
• AI: Artificial Intelligence, the ability for computers to perform tasks traditionally requiring human intelligence by finding patterns in vast amounts of data and using algorithms to make predictions or decisions
• Nvidia: a computing company that designs GPUs that has become a world leader in AI
• transcending: going beyond
• accolade: title, award or achievement
• STEM: an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
• autonomous: self-driving
• explicit: obvious or clear
• integrated: combined
• complementary: assisting, promoting and supporting one another so that the two go hand-in-hand
• biased: reflecting a certain point of view and opinion and not showing a balanced perspective

EXTRA READING
Snap’s AI has teens in the dark
Is this ‘humanoid’ a real robot?
Fire-starters change human history

QUICK QUIZ
1. What group of people was named Time’s 2025 Person of the Year?
2. What two years were concepts named Person of the Year?
3. What portion of Australian businesses lack the skills to adopt AI at scale?
4. Why was Amazon’s recent tech day aimed at girls?
5. In what way is the arts integrated in STEM?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Wow or worry?
Time Magazine’s social media post about the Person of the Year described AI as “wowing and worrying humanity.”

Work with a partner to brainstorm what you think the “wows” and “worries” of AI are.

After you’ve listed your ideas, discuss them together and decide whether you think AI is more wow or more worry. Write a paragraph to explain your reasoning.

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English; Digital Literacy; Ethical Understanding

2. Extension
If you could choose your own Person of the Year, who would you select? It can be somebody you know personally or someone who is well-known to the public. Create a one page document about them, explain why you have awarded them your Person of the Year.

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English

VCOP ACTIVITY
Wow word recycle
There are plenty of wow words (ambitious pieces of vocabulary) being used in the article. Some are in the glossary, but there might be extra ones from the article that you think are exceptional as well.

Identify all the words in the article that you think are not common words, and particularly good choices for the writer to have chosen.

Select three words you have highlighted to recycle into your own sentences.

If any of the words you identified are not in the glossary, write up your own glossary for them.

Extension
Find a bland sentence from the article to up-level. Can you add more detail and description? Can you replace any base words with more specific synonyms?

Down-level for a younger audience. Find a sentence in the article that is high level. Now rewrite it for a younger audience so they can understand the words without using the glossary.