Two Indian American innovators — Karandeep Anand and Sriram Krishnan — are featured in Time magazine’s Person of the Year issue recognizing the year’s most influential figure as “the architects” of artificial intelligence (AI).
Instead of a single person, the magazine includes Nvidia boss Jensen Huang, Meta head Mark Zuckerberg, X owner Elon Musk and AI “godmother” Fei-Fei Li among those depicted on one of its two covers. Also featured on the cover are Lisa Su, boss of chipmaker AMD, Anthropic chief Dario Amodei, and Google’s AI lab lead Sir Demis Hassabis.
Experts say it highlights how quickly AI, and the firms behind it, are reshaping society with a boom in the technology, ushered in by OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, with big tech firms pouring billions of dollars into AI.
There are two covers this year — one a piece of art depicting the letters AI surrounded by workers, and another a painting focused on the tech leaders themselves.
READ: Trump appoints Sriram Krishnan as senior AI policy advisor (
Anand and Krishnan’s inclusion in the issue reflects the growing influence of Indian American leadership in the global AI landscape, as they help shape both the consumer experience of AI and the policies guiding its future.
Anand, CEO of Character.AI, leads one of the world’s most popular AI companion platforms, attracting around 20 million active users, many of them Gen Z, who interact with AI agents for up to 80 minutes a day.
Character.AI allows people to create and converse with personalized AI characters that can roleplay, assist with studies, brainstorm ideas, or offer emotional support. The platform blends entertainment and utility, redefining how young people socialize, learn, and express themselves in an increasingly AI-driven digital environment.
Before joining Character.AI, Anand held major roles across top global tech firms. He spent 15 years at Microsoft contributing to Azure’s growth, served as vice president at Meta, overseeing Marketplace Ads, Payments and enterprise tools, and later became president and chief product officer at Brex.
A graduate of the International Institute of Information Technology, Anand is now focused on advancing multimodal AI, improving long-term memory features and strengthening safety filters on the platform. His leadership places him at the centre of the cultural and behavioral shifts powered by the rise of AI companions.
Krishnan, Senior White House Policy Adviser on AI in the Office of Science and Technology Policy, plays a central role in guiding the geopolitical and policy dimensions of artificial intelligence.
READ: “Did anyone vote for this Indian to run America?”: Sriram Krishnan faces backlash (
As one of the most influential voices behind the United States’ accelerationist AI agenda, Krishnan is a key contributor to the American AI Action Plan, a strategy designed to strengthen U.S. leadership and counter China in the rapidly escalating AI race.
Krishnan’s presence in TIME’s list also reflects his extensive experience across Silicon Valley. He scaled mobile advertising at Facebook, led product work at Snap and Twitter, and later advised Elon Musk during the restructuring of X.
He also headed the London office of Andreessen Horowitz, deepening his global perspective on innovation and markets. Known for advocating faster AI development, reduced regulatory barriers and greater private-sector involvement, Krishnan gained further prominence after China’s DeepSeek breakthrough in 2025, which triggered a major shift in U.S. policy.
TIME portrays him as a strategist operating at the heart of one of the most significant technology competitions of the century.
This isn’t the first time the Person of the Year has been a large group, with Ebola fighters being handed it in 2014 and whistleblowers in 2002. Previously, in 1982, it recognized the computer, with the magazine saying Americans had a “giddy passion” for the device. Then in 2006, the Person of the Year was given to “You” — intended to represent the power of individuals online.