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Rumbles have been heard for years of artificial intelligence entering the physical world, but no example is more tangible than the autonomous taxi company Waymo. While AI-driven taxis seem futuristic or scary to many, Waymos have already become a seamless way of life in a handful of major metropolises, where they’ve completed over 10 million rides. This spring, in hopes of seeing into our AI present and future, TIME correspondent Andrew R. Chow rode them around Austin and spoke with Waymo co-CEOs Dmitri Dolgov and Tekedra Mawakana about how the company has quietly taken over the roads—and where they’re headed next.
His reporting is the basis for the cover story of our fifth annual TIME100 Most Influential Companies issue, out this week. Waymo sets one example for responsible tech development: with a powerful cause (to cut traffic deaths), they’ve developed their technology carefully and rolled it out slowly (glacially, by Silicon Valley standards), with the knowledge that a single fatal accident could mean the end of not just their company, but their industry as a whole. “Trust is hard to build and easy to lose,” Mawakana tells TIME. We’ve learned the amount of humility needed: Ultimately, it’s the riders who are going to decide.”
On the issue’s second cover, Ryan Reynolds also centered his company on building public trust, but at breakneck speed. The marketing and production firm Maximum Effort coined the term “fastvertising” for pouncing on a cultural moment to produce a relevant ad in just a few days, and it’s Reynolds’s honest, accessible style that gains consumer trust. It’s working: The companies Reynolds co-owns or has sold are valued at over $14 billion; his latest Deadpool movie became the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever last year with more than $1.3 billion at the box office; and his soccer team, Wrexham AFC, became the first ever to win three consecutive promotions up the British football ranks.
To select the list of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies, our editors, led by Emma Barker Bonomo, requested suggestions and applications from across sectors, surveyed our contributors and correspondents around the world, and sought advice from outside experts. No single data point or financial metric makes a TIME100 Company. Instead, we looked at a mosaic of qualities, studying impact, innovation, ambition, and success, each in the forms that take shape today. And as we say for all TIME100 projects: influence comes in many forms, for better and for worse.
In addition to the 100 companies featured on the list, this year we are introducing the TIME100 Companies Impact Awards—recognizing five additional standout companies making meaningful contributions in the fields of AI, Health, Sustainability, Equality, and Culture. The firms were selected from applicants that stood out for their bold vision and tangible results. The inaugural recipients are: Google DeepMind for Impact in AI, Vertex Pharmaceuticals for Impact in Health, Schneider Electric for Impact in Sustainability, Janngo Capital for Impact in Equality, and The Lego Group for Impact in Culture.
Read about all of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies of 2025 here.
