Tennessee U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) was named in the third annual TIME100 AI list, which recognizes the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI).
The TIME100 AI list, released Thursday, features “leaders, innovators, shapers, and thinkers” who are “building” the future of AI.
Blackburn was one of 27 “Shapers” named in the TIME 100 AI list, alongside figures including her colleague U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (R-CT) and White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks.
AI has opened the door to exciting innovation, but it has also exposed kids, creators, and other Americans to detrimental harms.
America needs national standards to prevent the misuse & abuse of AI, and I won't stop fighting for federal protections.https://t.co/RzlruCqNRa
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) August 28, 2025
“AI has opened the door to exciting innovation, but it has also exposed kids, creators, and other Americans to detrimental harms. America needs national standards to prevent the misuse & abuse of AI, and I won’t stop fighting for federal protections,” Blackburn said in an X post along with a link to the TIME100 AI list.
In naming Blackburn as one of the top influencers in AI, TIME highlighted her role in leading the Senate effort to remove a 10-year moratorium on state-level AI regulation from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act earlier this year.
TIME also pointed to Blackburn’s work introducing the Transparency and Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks (TRAIN) Act, which aims to help creators protect their copyrighted work by allowing them to access AI training records through an administrative subpoena if they have a good faith belief their content was used to train generative AI models.
In celebration of the honorees, TIME will host the “TIME100 Impact Dinner: Leaders Shaping the Future of AI” on October 13 in San Francisco. The event will spotlight innovators, visionaries, and policymakers—like Senator Blackburn—who are playing a critical role in “shaping the future” of AI.
Other notable figures named in this year’s TIME100 AI list include billionaire and xAI founder Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon CEO and President Andy Jassy, and Pope Leo XIV.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Sen. Marsha Blackburn” by Sen. Marsha Blackburn.
