Fei-Fei Li

Fei-Fei Li helped lay the foundation for modern AI with ImageNet, a pioneering visual database launched in 2009 that taught computers to recognize everyday objects. Now the Stanford professor is building AI’s next frontier. In 2024, she cofounded World Labs, a spatial intelligence company building frontier world models that can perceive and interact with the 3D world as well as generate 3D environments. Investors have poured in. In early 2026, World Labs raised $1 billion from investors including Nvidia, AMD, Autodesk, Emerson Collective, and Fidelity, bringing total funding to $1.23 billion at a reported $5 billion valuation. A leading voice for human-centered AI, Li remains one of the field’s most influential figures.