--- description: Find out why Josh Woodward made TIME’s list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence. title: TIME100 AI 2025: Josh Woodward image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt04d39f3c0725bc88/6998c92b93610c517cc2fe94/Josh-Woodward.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Aug 26, 2025 # Josh Woodward VP, Google Labs and Gemini by [Tharin Pillay](/author/tharin-pillay/) ## Tharin Pillay Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Pillay is an editorial fellow at TIME.  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Courtesy Photo) At Google, Josh Woodward’s job is to turn research into reality. Having started at the company 16 years ago as an intern, Woodward worked his way up to lead both [Google Labs](https://labs.google/ "undefined"), the behemoth’s “home for AI experiments,” and the [Gemini](https://gemini.google.com/ "undefined") app, which has accrued over 450 million monthly active users. “We’re looking for things that are _almost_ possible”—ideas which may presently be slightly too slow, expensive, or otherwise challenging to deliver—but which show “glimmers of the future,” he tells TIME. Given how quickly AI is advancing, the key question Woodward faces is how to design features and products that show people what the technology has become capable of. His leadership approach emphasizes stacking momentum, or doing a handful of things each day that compound over time. It’s enabled his team to ship relentlessly, making the latest breakthroughs widely accessible. Last year, the Google Labs team had an unexpected hit with NotebookLM, which can synthesize realistic AI-generated podcasts from uploaded documents. There are dozens of research prototypes on Google Labs that could follow it, including [Flow](https://labs.google/flow/about "undefined"), which lets users create short videos from just a few words, and [Project Mariner](https://labs.google.com/mariner/landing "undefined"), which allows them to work with an agent embedded in their browsers. To Woodward, the mission is to create products that invigorate people. “I’m interested in building tools for people,” he says. “I’m not interested in replacing them.” _Disclosure: TIME has a technology agreement with Google._ Josh Woodward: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2025 ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305871/josh-woodward/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305871/josh-woodward/"},"headline":"Josh Woodward","datePublished":"2025-08-26T20:01:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T11:54:44.471Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time100-ai-2025/7305871/josh-woodward/","keywords":["Tech","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades","TIME100 AI 2025"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt04d39f3c0725bc88/6998c92b93610c517cc2fe94/Josh-Woodward.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tharin Pillay","jobTitle":"Pillay is an editorial fellow at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/tharin-pillay/"}],"creator":"Tharin Pillay","articleSection":"Business","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt04d39f3c0725bc88/6998c92b93610c517cc2fe94/Josh-Woodward.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-2025/7305871/josh-woodward/","name":"Josh Woodward"}}]}] ```