Since 1927, Time magazine has annually chosen its Person of the Year, who "for better or worse... has done the most to influence the events of the year." While its choice is usually a human person, Time has also chosen inanimate objects in the past, specifically "The Computer" in 1982 and "Endangered Earth" in 1988.

Since the release of ChatGPT, there seems to have been a significant increase in interest in topics related to artificial intelligence (AI). For example, Google searches for AI-related topics have increased significantly, and ChatGPT made it to the cover of Time.