40 AI creators to follow on X in 2026
These are 40 of the best AI creators to follow on X, grouped by what they actually post: research, new papers, lab news, daily AI news, building, business and AI video. Every account was checked on 20 October 2026, and the follower counts are from that day.
This list is published by GrowthMatrix, an influencer marketing agency for AI and tech brands. Nobody paid to be on it, and being on it doesn't mean we work with them. Company accounts like OpenAI and Anthropic are left out, so the list is people only.
The most followed people on this list, 20 October 2026
Seven people on this list have over a million followers
Start here
| If you want | Follow first |
|---|---|
| To understand how AI works | Andrej Karpathy, Sebastian Raschka |
| New research papers every day | AK, elvis |
| To know what launched today | Rowan Cheung, Chubby |
| To build with AI | Simon Willison, Mckay Wrigley |
| To use AI at work | Ethan Mollick, Allie K. Miller |
| AI image and video | Nick St. Pierre, Pierrick Chevallier |
AI researchers
The people doing the research, explaining it in their own words.
| Creator | Followers | What they post |
|---|---|---|
| Andrej Karpathy @karpathy | 4.38M | Plain-English explanations of how large language models work, plus his own coding projects. A founding member of OpenAI and former head of AI at Tesla. |
| Andrew Ng @AndrewYNg | 1.94M | Co-founder of Coursera and Stanford adjunct faculty. AI education, agents and AI policy. |
| Yann LeCun @ylecun | 1.34M | Founder and chair of AMI Labs and NYU professor. Strong, often contrarian views on where AI research should go. |
| François Chollet @fchollet | 749K | Creator of Keras and the ARC-AGI benchmark, co-founder of Ndea. Intelligence, reasoning and how to measure them. |
| Jim Fan @DrJimFan | 601K | NVIDIA Director of Robotics. Robotics and embodied AI, explained clearly. |
| Sebastian Raschka @rasbt | 528K | ML and AI research engineer and author of a book on building an LLM from scratch. Readable breakdowns of new papers. |
| hardmaru (David Ha) @hardmaru | 443K | Co-founder and CEO of Sakana AI. Research ideas and AI from Japan. |
| Jeremy Howard @jeremyphoward | 331K | Co-founder of Answer.AI and fast.ai. Practical deep learning and open-source tools. |
Research papers and how AI is used
Follow these to see new papers early and to see what models can really do.
| Creator | Followers | What they post |
|---|---|---|
| AK @_akhaliq | 535K | New AI research papers every day, often with demos. Works on Gradio at Hugging Face. |
| Ethan Mollick @emollick | 406K | Wharton professor studying AI. Research and real tests on how AI changes work and education. |
| elvis (Elvis Saravia) @omarsar0 | 325K | Building DAIR.AI, previously at Meta AI and Papers with Code. Paper summaries and guides on prompting and agents. |
| Riley Goodside @goodside | 235K | In his words, "mostly screenshots of chatbots": clever prompts and model quirks. Formerly at Google DeepMind and Scale. |
Lab and company leaders
Big launches often appear here first, before the company account posts them.
| Creator | Followers | What they post |
|---|---|---|
| Sam Altman @sama | 6.39M | OpenAI CEO. OpenAI product news, often before anywhere else. |
| Demis Hassabis @demishassabis | 1.96M | Nobel laureate and co-founder and chair of Google DeepMind. Research milestones from DeepMind. |
| Aravind Srinivas @AravSrinivas | 1.17M | Co-founder and CEO of Perplexity. Product launches and AI search. |
| Greg Brockman @gdb | 1.07M | President and co-founder of OpenAI. |
| Clem Delangue @ClementDelangue | 729K | Co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face. Open-source models and the open AI community. |
| Logan Kilpatrick @OfficialLoganK | 382K | Works on Gemini and Google AI Studio. Gemini launches and developer updates. |
| Alex Albert @alexalbert__ | 153K | Research at Anthropic. Claude updates and how people use them. |
Daily AI news and commentary
The fastest way to know what launched today and what people think of it.
| Creator | Followers | What they post |
|---|---|---|
| Robert Scoble @Scobleizer | 610K | AI, robotics and brain-computer interfaces from San Francisco and Silicon Valley, all day. |
| Rowan Cheung @rowancheung | 601K | Founder of The Rundown AI newsletter. Daily AI news and interviews. |
| Matt Shumer @mattshumer_ | 398K | Hands-on takes on new models and AI tools. Invests in AI startups. |
| Min Choi @minchoi | 392K | What's wild and what's practical in AI, with demos. |
| Barsee @heyBarsee | 268K | Daily posts on the latest AI and tech developments. |
| Linus Ekenstam @LinusEkenstam | 245K | AI and robotics deep dives and hot takes. |
| Chubby @kimmonismus | 152K | Tech analyst and editor-in-chief of Superintel. Fast coverage of model releases and benchmarks. |
Builders and developers
People who build with AI every day and show their work.
| Creator | Followers | What they post |
|---|---|---|
| Pieter Levels @levelsio | 979K | Solo founder building AI products in public, with real revenue numbers. |
| Guillermo Rauch @rauchg | 913K | Vercel CEO. AI for building and shipping web apps. |
| Amjad Masad @amasad | 500K | Replit CEO. AI coding agents and building software with AI. |
| Santiago @svpino | 457K | Computer scientist teaching machine learning and AI engineering. |
| Simon Willison @simonw | 242K | Co-creator of Django and creator of Datasette. Careful, tested notes on new models and tools. |
| Mckay Wrigley @mckaywrigley | 229K | Builds and teaches AI apps and coding workflows. |
| swyx @swyx | 204K | AI engineering: agents, tools and the people building them. |
| Charly Wargnier @DataChaz | 182K | Agents, LLMs and automation, with open-source finds. |
AI for business and work
For founders and teams who want to use AI, not research it.
| Creator | Followers | What they post |
|---|---|---|
| Greg Isenberg @gregisenberg | 746K | Startup ideas every day, many built on AI. Hosts the Startup Ideas podcast. |
| Matt Wolfe @mreflow | 121K | AI tools, news and commentary. Runs the FutureTools database. |
| Allie K. Miller @alliekmiller | 111K | AI for business leaders. Formerly at Amazon. |
AI image and video
For seeing what image and video models can do in real work.
| Creator | Followers | What they post |
|---|---|---|
| Nick St. Pierre @nickfloats | 175K | Midjourney and AI image experiments, and what he learns from them. |
| Javi Lopez @javilopen | 129K | Founder of Magnific AI. AI image and video experiments. |
| Pierrick Chevallier @CharaspowerAI | 55K | VFX artist testing AI video in real production pipelines. |
Which AI creators move which launches
Following people and getting them to talk about your product are different things. From the launches we run, each group above tends to move a different kind of launch:
| Launch | Creators who move it | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A new model or research release | Researchers, paper accounts and daily AI news | They explain what is new and quote the launch post within hours |
| A developer tool or API | Builders and developers | Developers trust a working demo from another developer. See developer tool launches |
| A consumer AI app | Daily AI news and AI image and video creators | They reach people outside the tech bubble and show the product in use |
| SaaS and B2B software | AI for business voices, on X and LinkedIn | They reach the people who approve budgets. See SaaS and B2B influencer marketing |
Most people on this list don't take paid posts, and researchers and company leaders almost never do. For a launch, what matters is creators whose followers are your buyers, not the biggest names. We cover how to check that in how to pick tech influencers for a product launch.
How to follow AI on X without drowning
- Make three X Lists: research, news and building. Read one list a day instead of the whole feed.
- Turn on notifications for two or three people only. Pick the ones whose posts you act on.
- Bookmark, then review once a week. Most AI news is noise a week later. What's still useful is worth your time.
- Mute words you never want to see, like giveaway or airdrop.
- Follow the replies, not just the posts. The best corrections and demos are often in the replies to a big launch.
How we chose them
- People, not company accounts. Every name is a person you can follow.
- AI is most of what they post. Each one posts mainly about AI research, AI news, building with AI or using it.
- Active and public. Every account was live and public on 20 October 2026.
- A mix of sizes. From 6 million followers to about 55 thousand, because smaller accounts often post the most useful detail.
- No paid spots. Nobody asked or paid to be included.
FAQ
Who is the most followed AI person on X?
Of the people on this list, Sam Altman has the most followers on X, with 6.39M on 20 October 2026, followed by Andrej Karpathy with 4.38M.
Who should I follow on X for daily AI news?
Rowan Cheung, Chubby, Barsee, Min Choi and Robert Scoble all post AI news every day. Rowan Cheung also runs The Rundown AI newsletter.
Who should developers follow for AI on X?
Simon Willison, Mckay Wrigley, swyx, Santiago and Charly Wargnier post about building with AI, with real code and tools. For research, add Sebastian Raschka and Andrej Karpathy.
Who are the best AI researchers on X?
Andrej Karpathy, Andrew Ng, Yann LeCun, François Chollet, Jim Fan, Sebastian Raschka, David Ha and Jeremy Howard. For new papers every day, follow AK and elvis.
Do AI creators on X do sponsored posts?
Some do. Most researchers and company leaders on this list don't. When a creator is paid to post on X, the post should carry X's paid partnership label.
How do brands work with AI creators for a launch?
They pick creators whose followers are the buyers, brief them on one real use case, approve every post and time everything to the launch. That's the work we do at GrowthMatrix for AI and tech launches.