From its abundance of computer science majors to its world-class laboratories, Stanford has been a hub for artificial intelligence (AI) innovation for many years.
2025 marked a year of profound technological growth, and several Stanford alumni and researchers were leaders in the AI revolution.
Yejin Choi
Choi, an advocate for efficient AI use, joined the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) in January to explore small language models (SLM). In a recent talk at NeurIPS, the premier annual conference for machine learning, Choi said she hopes to defy the thinking that “more is more” and enhance SLM reasoning capabilities to match those of larger models.
Choi’s main interests in the field are constructing general, adaptable models for molecular discovery and pluralistic alignment, which aims to use democratic values to integrate diverse viewpoints in AI. Choi is a MacArthur Fellow. In 2025, he was featured on the Time100 AI list.
Carlos Guestrin
Guestrin, a computer science professor, was named the new director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) last year. He has helped lead joint efforts with the HAI. His personal research focuses on interpretability, or figuring out how AI models work, and verifying AI outputs to build trust.
Guestrin is best known for his contributions to the popular machine learning library XGBoost and the GraphLab project for scalable machine learning. Guestrin has also served as a Chief Scientist at Visual Layer and Virtue AI.
Fei-Fei Li
Li, nicknamed the “Godmother of AI,” is co-director of the HAI. She led a research report on generative AI governance proposals for California Governor Gavin Newsom in June. The report was incorporated in the “Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act” (SB53) in September. She also helped publish the 2025 AI Index Report. A startup she founded, World Labs, is currently pushing the frontiers of spatial intelligence to build models that interact with the 3D world.
Last year, Li was recognized with the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and the Time100 AI award.
Jensen Huang ’92
Huang founded Nvidia, which produces advanced chips to help power a growing AI field. Under Huang’s leadership, Nvidia became the first company to reach a market value of over $5 trillion in October. Huang is now the eighth richest man in the world.
Last year, Huang continued to emphasize the importance of AI in national infrastructure and global GDP. He was named one of the “Architects of AI” for TIME magazine’s Person of the Year award.
Dario Amodei ’06
Amodei was also recognized by TIME as one of the “Architects of AI.” He is the co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, the company behind AI assistant Claude. Last year, Amodei led the company through one of its fastest periods of growth, including the release of new popular foundational tools with improved reasoning abilities such as Claude Opus and Claude Code. He also publicly advocated for enhanced AI regulation, especially after Anthropic disrupted a Chinese-sponsored cyberattack in November.