TIME100 AI 2026 · Shapers

Max Spero

Co-founder and CEO, Pangram Labs

His AI-text detector Pangram says its monthly users jumped from 2,700 in June 2025 to 120,000 in June 2026.

Interesting facts

Before AI
Worked on self-driving delivery vehicles at Nuro, leading its active learning effort, right before starting an AI text detector.
medium.com
Turning point
Says Pangram was "close to shutting down" before demand spiked in late 2025 as AI slop spread online.
time.com
Numbers
His team's study of about 186,000 articles from 1,500 U.S. newspapers flagged about 9% as partly or wholly AI-generated.
en.wikipedia.org
First
Launched the detector in October 2023 under the name Checkfor.ai, before renaming the company Pangram Labs in April 2024.
en.wikipedia.org
In their words
Refuses to release a tool that rewrites AI text to dodge detection, saying "The LLMs aren't static, but neither is Pangram."
time.com