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About

What The People Behind AI is

The People Behind AI is a project of AIGEA: an open directory of the people who build AI models at organizations in the United States and Europe, including frontier labs, open-source labs, multimedia model companies, research centers and academic groups. Each profile lists the title, organization, level, area of work and, when available, a featured contribution, always with a link to its source.

It currently covers thousands of people. China and the rest of the world are out of scope, as are organizations that do not develop models.

The five levels

The level is assigned from the published job title, not from any personal assessment.

Level 1
CEO, founder, co-founder or C-level executive (Chief Scientist, CTO, Chief Research Officer…).
Level 2
VP, Head, Director, team or area lead, Research Manager.
Level 3
Technical profile with relevant public work: lead author of widely cited papers, leader of a well-known project or product, or an active public presence about their work.
Level 4
Technical staff: Member of Technical Staff, Research Scientist, Research Engineer, software engineering, data science. If only the organization is known, level 4 is provisional.
Level 5
Other roles: sales, recruiting, legal, design, operations, program and people management.

For organizations headquartered in Europe, only levels 1, 2 and 3 are published.

Where the data comes from

All data comes from public, verifiable sources:

Appearing as an author of a report or a member of a team at a past date counts as valid data; the year of the source is indicated in the profile. This does not imply that the person is still at that organization today. The verification date and a link to the source appear on each profile.

Updates

The data is reviewed and expanded in batches. Last updated: —.

Privacy

Who is responsible

The People Behind AI is a project of AIGEA, the controller of the data in this directory. Contact for any privacy matter: the contact email.

What data is published and why

Only professional information that is already public is published: name, organization, title, area, level, a featured contribution when one exists, and links to professional profiles or to the source. The goal is to inform the public about who develops AI systems with major social impact, a matter of public interest.

We do not collect or publish age, personal location, email address, phone number, special categories of data (health, beliefs, origin, etc.) or any data unrelated to the person's role. No profiles are built and no automated decisions are made about anyone, and no data is sold or shared. From LinkedIn we only keep, as a link, the address of a profile that appears in a public search; no data is extracted from that platform.

Legal basis

The processing is based on the legitimate interest in informing the public about the people who develop AI technologies (Article 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR), using data that the individuals themselves or their organizations have made public. This page also serves as the information notice for people whose data was not obtained directly from them (Article 14 GDPR).

Sources and retention

Sources are listed above and on each profile. Data is kept for as long as the profile remains accurate and useful, or until its subject asks for it to be removed.

Photo origin and license

Photos are shown only for levels 1 to 3, with one exception: the Ai2 team, whose official directory publishes a photo of all its staff. They come from the organization's official website or from Wikimedia Commons under a free license. Each profile states the origin and, for Wikimedia, the license (for example CC BY-SA 4.0) and the author. Images are not downloaded or hosted here: they are loaded from their original address. Photos taken from official websites are shown without an explicit license published by the organization; if you hold the rights to an image and want it removed, write to us.

Your rights

You can exercise your rights of access, rectification, erasure, objection and restriction of processing (Articles 15 to 21 GDPR) by writing to the contact email. If you live in another jurisdiction, we also honor the rights your local law grants you. If you believe we have not handled your request properly, you may complain to the data protection authority of your country.

Correction or removal

Anyone listed in the directory can ask for their profile to be corrected or removed, without having to justify it. Write to the contact email with your name and organization, or use the "Request correction or removal" link at the bottom of each profile. We respond within the maximum period set by law: one month from receiving the request (Article 12(3) GDPR), extendable only in complex cases as the law itself provides. We remove the profile as soon as the requester's identity is confirmed.

The People Behind AI is a project of AIGEA. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any of the organizations or people listed in the directory. Organization names, logos and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used solely to identify the organizations; they imply no affiliation or endorsement. Logos come from Simple Icons (CC0), Wikimedia Commons (public domain) and official websites, as listed in assets/logos/LICENSES.txt. If you are a rights holder and want a logo removed, write to us.

The information is provided for informational purposes, as is and without any guarantee that it is complete, current or error-free. Being listed in the directory does not imply an opinion, an assessment or an accusation about anyone, nor that they are still at the organization indicated. Titles and dates reflect what the sources said at the time they were consulted. If you spot an error, let us know and we will correct it.