--- title: Peggy Johnson: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2025 description: Find out why Peggy Johnson made TIME’s list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence. canonical: https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305848/peggy-johnson/ article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-08-26T18:51:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T11:54:43.295Z article:section: Business og:title: TIME100 AI 2025: Peggy Johnson og:description: Find out why Peggy Johnson made TIME’s list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence og:url: https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305848/peggy-johnson/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt63c6b1c265880256/6998c92783ec37a769c7add1/Peggy-Johnson.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME100 AI 2025: Peggy Johnson og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: TIME100 AI 2025: Peggy Johnson twitter:description: Find out why Peggy Johnson made TIME’s list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt63c6b1c265880256/6998c92783ec37a769c7add1/Peggy-Johnson.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 26, 2025 # Peggy Johnson CEO, Agility Robotics by [Harry Booth](/author/harry-booth/) ## Harry Booth Booth is a reporter at TIME.  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Courtesy Photo) Flowery Branch, Ga., is better known for its small-town charm than its technological milestones. But in June 2024, it became the unlikely site of the world’s first commercial deployment of humanoid robots. The Digit bots, built by startup Agility Robotics, began their shifts loading and stacking boxes in a warehouse run by logistics powerhouse GXO. Amazon will soon receive its own bots, as will German automaker Schaeffler, which announced a minority investment in Agility in November. Founded in 2015, Agility first honed expertise in robotics fundamentals, which gave it a “jump on most of our competition,” says CEO Peggy Johnson. “AI just supercharged it,” allowing the robots to tackle a wider array of tasks, she says. While safety and business growth are often viewed in conflict, Johnson sees things differently. With Agility’s next-generation model weighing upwards of 200 pounds, a robot falling over could be dangerous. For that reason, robots currently operate in cordoned zones that humans cannot enter. But to reach widespread adoption, Johnson wants to make it safe for humans and robots to work together side-by-side—which she says is only two years away. “It's not as sexy as making a [cup of coffee](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5MKo7Idsok "undefined"),” she says. “But if we can check that safety box, the market is ours.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305848/peggy-johnson/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305848/peggy-johnson/"},"headline":"Peggy Johnson","datePublished":"2025-08-26T18:51:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T11:54:43.295Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305848/peggy-johnson/","keywords":["Tech","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades","TIME100 AI 2025"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt63c6b1c265880256/6998c92783ec37a769c7add1/Peggy-Johnson.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Harry Booth","jobTitle":"Booth is a reporter at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/harry-booth/"}],"creator":"Harry Booth","articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt63c6b1c265880256/6998c92783ec37a769c7add1/Peggy-Johnson.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305848/peggy-johnson/","name":"Peggy Johnson"}}]}] ```