AI Creators & Founders to Follow in 2025
They won't let you miss the most important and interesting in the AI world.
The AI industry has grown tremendously since the beginning of 2024. We have gained more companies, technologies, approaches, and, of course, personalities. To summarize one of the year's outcomes, let’s compile a list of those who deserve our attention. So, get out the cork boards, photos, newspaper clippings, and red threads.
It's time to define the top AI creators and founders for next year.
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How Did We Choose?
But first, let's get something clear. You can find hundreds of creators and founders in our niche. To avoid confusion and overwhelm, we divided creators and founders and followed these simple rules:
- Spotlighting Emerging Talent: We could have made a list using established entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Andrew Ng, and Lex Friedman. But what's the point?
- Strong Past Shapes a Bright Future: While prioritizing young creators, we can't forget their achievements. Past projects hint at the prospects of future endeavors.
- Valuing Transparency and Engagement: If we follow anyone, it's those who openly share their paths, lessons, and even failures.
- Disruptive Innovation: We need something important, don't we? That's why we've paid attention to those who create innovative products or help us not to miss out.
Disagree with our list? Tell us about your favorite creators in the comments!
AI Creators
Rowan Cheung
Where to Follow: X | LinkedIn | Newsletter
It's usually quite challenging to talk about competitors in a good way. But this one is not the case. After all, Rowan Cheung has become a key figure in democratizing access to AI information. He's the founder of The Rundown newsletter, which has amassed a subscriber base of more than 650,000 people and keeps professionals and enthusiasts up to date on the latest developments in AI.
In addition, Cheung is the creator of Supertools, an online database of AI tools, and hosts The AI News Rundown podcast. His ability to translate complex AI developments into digestible content has made him an indispensable industry expert. He is also a great source of insights and verified information on industry innovations.
So, of course, we follow him and advise you to do the same.
Allie K. Miller
Where to Follow: X | LinkedIn | Personal Blog
Meet Allie K. Miller. She has become a prominent figure in the AI industry and is known for her multi-faceted roles as an advisor and investor. Her impact on the field is significant. Miller served as the global head of ML business development for startups and VC at Amazon Web Services (AWS).
By the way, she transformed her division into a 10-figure organization.
Miller's experience extends beyond her corporate accomplishments. She has spoken on global platforms, including the European Commission, and has written more than 10 AI guides that empower enterprises to utilize AI successfully. Her commitment to democratizing AI knowledge is evident in her ability to demystify complex AI concepts, making them accessible to entrepreneurs and startups.
Matt Wolfe
Where to Follow: YouTube | Personal Blog | LinkedIn
Matt Wolfe is another prominent AI and tech expert known for his YouTube content. His channel has become a go-to resource for enthusiasts and professionals, providing insights into AI trends, tools, and innovations. Wolfe's ability to break down complex topics into digestible information has garnered him a substantial following. So now, he is one of the most influential voices in the AI community.
Wolfe alsp actively participates in industry events and interviews thought leaders in the tech space. His discussions often focus on the intersection of AI and creativity, exploring how these technologies can enhance various sectors. As AI evolves rapidly, following Matt Wolfe can provide valuable perspectives on emerging trends and the implications of AI advancements for businesses and society.
Wolfe is also the creator of Future Tools. Add it to your bookmarks!
Michael Spencer
Where to Follow: LinkedIn | Substack
is another important persona in AI. He's well known to users of our favorite platform, Substack, as the founder and chief author of the AI Supremacy newsletter. But he's also active on other social networks, including LinkedIn, with over 230,000 followers. He typically covers topics related to AI, robotics, quantum computing, and business trends in depth.
In addition to his newsletter, Spencer has launched several side projects. His recent focus has been on AI agents and their impact on productivity and decision-making processes. His background includes a BA in psychology from Concordia University and experience in content marketing and copywriting, providing an interesting perspective on industry developments.
More AI newsletters to stay informed:
- The Algorithmic Bridge by
- One Useful Thing by
- Write With AI by
- Designing with AI by
- AI Panic by
Nik Shevchenko
Where to Follow: X | LinkedIn | Personal Blog | Startup Website
Nick Shevchenko is at the intersection of creators and founders. He often shares his thoughts on the industry on social media but also builds his own projects. Shevchenko started his entrepreneurial journey at 16, founding and selling his first company, Fundplatform. He later founded WeLoveNoCode, a marketplace for developers, which he scaled to a $52M valuation and sold Toptal. Then, Shevchenko immersed himself in AI products.
This spring, the company's founder introduced Friend, an AI necklace that works like a smart assistant. The gadget used ChatGPT, which processed data from the world around it and then summarized it for the user. Over time, the project evolved into a separate company called Omi AI.
Shevchenko was previously part of a team that managed to create smart glasses at a hackathon in just 36 hours. And you can do it too:
The official launch of the company is scheduled for January 8, 2025. The company is already talking with journalists and influencers about early access.
Omi AI will usher in the AI gadget season of 2025. Do you think it will succeed? Or will it turn out like with Rabbit R1 and Humane AI Pin?
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AI Founders
Demi Guo & Chenlin Meng
Where to Follow: Demi Guo & Chenlin Meng (on X) | Pika Labs (on X)
Next up, two young founders at once in one place. Demi Guo and Chenlin Meng are co-founders of Pika Labs, a genAI video creation platform that has gained significant traction since its launch in April 2023. Both are Stanford dropouts; Guo has a math degree from Harvard and previously worked at Meta AI Research, while Meng has published numerous papers on generative AI and interned at Google AI.
These founders created a competitive video generation startup in less than a year. Now, Pika Labs allows users to create high-quality videos with simple prompts, making production accessible to a wide audience. The platform has over 500,000 users and raised $55M. As the founders say, their mission is to empower people to tell their stories through technology, positioning them as key influencers in the future of AI-driven media. Forbes recently included Guo and Meng on its 30 Under 30 AI 2025.
Here’s a full tutorial for Pika Labs:
George Morgan
Man, when is someone going to teach founders how to take at least a couple of good horizontal photos?
Where to Follow: X | LinkedIn | Startup Website
It is always interesting to follow those who try to disrupt the status quo. George Morgan is just such a case. He is a former Tesla engineer who founded Symbolica in 2022, a startup aiming to revolutionize AI. Morgan believes that current AI models are fundamentally broken and will not lead to Artificial General Intelligence, prompting him to develop a new approach to machine learning.
At Symbolica, Morgan focuses on structured reasoning and symbolic AI, unlike traditional statistical approaches. His company has raised $33M and is developing AI models that are more controllable, interpretable, and reliable. Morgan argues that his approach will create AI models that are orders of magnitude faster, cheaper, and more capable than existing large language models, with an emphasis on complex formal language tasks like code synthesis and theorem proving.
Well, this guy's got a lot of ambition. Let's see what he can do next year.
Jared Quincy Davis
Where to Follow: X | LinkedIn | Startup Website
And here's another great founder for you. Jared Quincy Davis is the CEO of Foundry, a company that optimizes and democratizes access to AI computing resources. His journey began as a graduate student at Stanford, where he found it challenging to secure GPU time for his ML projects. He went on to gain experience as a research fellow at DeepMind and later founded his own startup.
According to Davis, Foundry solves fundamental economic and technical hurdles faced in AI and deep learning. Current challenges enterprises face, such as a perceived shortage of GPUs and inefficient use of computational capabilities, hinder the efficient utilization of resources. At the same time, this Foundry company is taking new approaches to overcome the obstacles by offering scalable GPU instances with a reasonable price-to-performance ratio.
If you're immersed in not only the software of the AI but also the hardware, keep an eye out for this founder and his startup.
The Three Founders You Must Follow
Rounding out our list with a trio of AI entrepreneurs who share a common past. Namely Ilya Sutskever, Mira Murati, and Andrej Karpathy. All are from OpenAI, all have long been widely recognized in the industry, all promise big surprises in 2025.
Let's briefly talk about each of them.
Ilya Sutskever
Where to Follow: X | LinkedIn | Startup Website
Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of OpenAI, was and remains a key figure in AI development and security. As Sam Altman previously said, his pioneering innovations in deep learning have revolutionized image classification and natural language processing. This year, Sutskever left OpenAI to pursue his startup.
He launched Safe Superintelligence Inc. in June 2024, securing $1 billion in funding to develop safe AGI systems. Through this project, the founder will focus on creating useful and ethically safe AI that works to benefit humanity. So far, there are few details about SSI, but we are sure the startup will make a loud statement next year.
Mira Murati
Before her time at OpenAI, Murati gained experience in the technology industry working at Tesla, where she was Senior Product Manager for Model X, and at Leap Motion, where she was VP of Product and Engineering. At OpenAI, she focused on advancing AI technologies, emphasizing the importance of responsible and ethical deployment. Her work has earned her much recognition, including a spot on Fortune's “100 Most Powerful Women in Business” list.
Like Sutskever, Murati announced her departure from OpenAI in 2024. And recently, she raised over $100M for a new AI startup focused on proprietary models. Right now, the company doesn't even have a name, but Murati is rumored to be assembling a team for the business.
Andrej Karpathy
Where to Follow: X | Startup Website
Andrej Karpathy was a co-founder of OpenAI. He worked as a researcher from 2015 to 2017 and then served as Director of AI and Autopilot Vision at Tesla from 2017 to 2022. Karpathy returned to OpenAI in 2023, where he assembled a team to improve GPT-4. However, the innovator found himself cramped within his old company, so in 2024, he launched Eureka Labs, an AI training platform designed to make AI training more accessible.
Karpathy sees Eureka Labs as a solution to the shortage of experienced educators who can deliver personalized learning to a global audience. The platform will use generative AI to create a symbiotic relationship between AI assistants and human teachers, enabling a scalable and interactive curriculum.
To find out what these and other members of the OpenAI mafia are up to, read this post:
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This article was first published in the Creators AI newsletter. View the original edition.
