Artificial intelligence ceased to be a promise for the future and became the most tangible reality of 2025. TIME recognized this historic change by naming the "Architects of AI"as Person of the Year, marking the third time the magazine has awarded this distinction to a non-human entity.

Sam Jacobs, editor-in-chief of TIME, was blunt in explaining the decision: "This was the year that the full potential of artificial intelligence roared into view, and when it became clear that there will be no turning back and no opting out." The choice fell not on the technology itself, but on the minds that design, build, and deploy it.

The cover symbolizing a new era

TIME prepared two covers for this issue. The first, by digital artist Jason Seiler, reinterprets the iconic 1932 photograph "Lunch Over a Skyscraper," replacing the workers of the Great Depression with today's tech leaders: Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Lisa Su (AMD), Elon Musk (xAI), Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Sam Altman (OpenAI), Demis Hassabis (DeepMind), Dario Amodei (Anthropic), and Fei-Fei Li (Stanford).
This group of eight people has a combined fortune of $870 billion, according to Forbes, much of which was generated during the last three years of the AI boom.

The DeepSeek moment that shook Silicon Valley

On the same day as Trump's presidential inauguration in January, a Chinese startup called DeepSeek launched an AI model that rivaled the capabilities of its US competitors. This move set off alarm bells in Washington and prompted an immediate response: the next day, Sam Altman, Larry Ellison, and Masayoshi Son announced Project Stargate at the White House, with a promised investment of up to $500 billion to build AI data centers in the United States.

From experimentation to mass production

What sets 2025 apart from previous years is the speed of deployment. TIME magazine highlighted how coding tools such as Cursor reached $1 billion in annual revenue, becoming one of the fastest-growing startups in history. At Anthropic, Claude now writes up to 90% of its own code. Nvidia nearly quadrupled its chip production while only doubling its workforce.

Energy demand has skyrocketed. Data centers will account for 8% of all electricity consumption in the United States by 2030, double that of 2023. The big tech companies—Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta—plan to jointly invest $370 billion this year in AI infrastructure.

The price of progress

This transformation comes with clear commitments. Fifty-three percent of Americans believe that AI could eventually "destroy humanity," according to a Yahoo/YouGov poll. Jobs are disappearing, misinformation is proliferating, and distinguishing between what is real and what is artificial is becoming increasingly difficult.

Thomas Husson, principal analyst at Forrester, explains that 2025 was the year AI went from being a technology explored by early adopters to becoming part of the everyday lives of a critical mass of consumers. Among Generation Z, 93% regularly use AI chatbots, an unprecedented level of penetration.

The verdict of history

"For ushering in the era of thinking machines, for both thrilling and troubling humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of AI are TIME's 2025 Person of the Year," the magazine declared. The question is no longer whether AI will transform our lives, but how we will navigate that inevitable change.

At companies such as Qaleon, we are already leading this transformation in the Spanish market, applying artificial intelligence and advanced analytics to revolutionize sectors such as talent development and health monitoring. While tech giants build the global infrastructure for AI, specialized companies are demonstrating that the real value lies in applying this technology to solve specific problems and improve people's lives.