As co-founder of World Labs, she just raised $1 billion in funding to expand AI into “spatial intelligence.” She wants to put humans at the center every step of the way
Fei-Fei Li is one of USA TODAY’s 2026 Women of the Year, which recognizes women who have made a significant impact in and outside of their communities. Introducing this year’s winners here.
On February 18th, Feifei Li made headlines. World Labs, the company she co-founded, announced it has raised $1 billion in funding amount B. They are now gearing up to bring artificial intelligence to 3D. This is the “spatial intelligence” that enables robots to wash dishes and sort socks.
Twenty years ago, when she was a young assistant professor fresh off her Ph.D. and working in the field of AI, even Lee couldn’t have imagined that would be possible. At the time, to the general public, the field was synonymous with sci-fi dystopian movies like “The Matrix” and “I, Robot.” In the research community, this technology was seen as promising but largely stalled.
“I entered the AI world in the middle of the AI winter,” she says.
Inspired by family and the future: Feifei Li talks about using AI for good
Stanford University computer scientist Fei-Fei Li, a USA TODAY Women of the Year, explains why principles should come before profit for AI.
But Lee had a theory. Humans learn visually. We absorb vast amounts of information by looking at the world around us. She believed that AI needed to learn how humans learn. It uses not only algorithms, but also images.
“I knew this was a contrarian idea, but I really felt like this was one piece that was definitely missing,” she says.
Lee’s hypothesis received little attention. She co-authored a small paper and presented it at a conference without much fanfare. However, she published the dataset and challenged it. Think of this as the Olympics for AI. The 2010 ImageNet Large-Scale Visual Recognition Challenge brought together the world’s best teams to teach computers how to “see” what’s in a photo, using the same large number of images and the same rules.
It was intentionally democratic, open, transparent and inclusive. Competitiveness. human. “Science is about openness, discussion and free flow of ideas,” says Lee, 49. “We test, experiment, and discuss each other’s ideas.” ImageNet quickly became one of the driving forces behind AI, providing the field with much-needed data and establishing benchmarks for progress.
AI and cucumbers (yes, cucumbers)
Lee took a sabbatical to work at Google in 2017 and began to understand how transformative AI could be. The size and scope of the tech giant was impressive. “AI has been a personal curiosity throughout my career,” she says. As a lead scientist in AI and machine learning, she worked in sectors ranging from healthcare to agriculture to manufacturing to energy, and quickly saw how AI would change everyone’s lives. “Every business I worked in was going to be or was going to be changed by AI,” she says.
And everyone: She learned about Japanese farmers using Google’s AI technology. “He was helping out on his mother’s cucumber farm, and there was a very tedious step of sorting the cucumbers,” she recalls. “He’s a developer and a programmer. So to empower his mother, he automated that part of the process using Google’s software. I was here in Silicon Valley, working for the biggest company, graduating from one of the best universities in the world. And on the other side of the world, one person can use AI to transform a small business.”
She recognized that such a civilizational influence required some basic rules. “It became a mission for me,” she says. “We need a lighthouse to show us where this technology is going. One company can’t make money. We have to center human dignity, human well-being.”
She stuck to that belief even as Google faced backlash over Project Maven, a controversial deal with the Pentagon to use AI to analyze drone footage in conflict zones. Thousands of employees petitioned the company not to engage in “war business,” and some of Lee’s emails were publicly leaked. She did not resign. In return, she helped create Google’s “AI Principles” for the responsible development of technology. “I stayed because I had a responsibility,” she says. “Every university, every company was grappling with how to establish industry norms, how to establish a culture within each organization to deal with what was coming.”
Once these guidelines were made available to the public, she returned to Stanford with a sense of urgency. If AI is to shape humanity, humanity will need to be at the very center of technological progress. She co-founded the Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute in 2019 to bring together colleagues across disciplines, including computer science, law, medicine, business, and the humanities, to explore, study, and above all guide the impact of AI on humans and society. She uses her expertise to guide public policy. When California Governor Gavin Newsom was pushing for new legislation to put guardrails around AI, he called on Lee.
“Godmother of AI”
According to Harvard University economist Jason Furman, AI will account for 92% of GDP growth by early 2025, and experts believe this is just the beginning of a massive cultural shift driven by machine learning.
Lee often says that who builds AI will influence its future. She reminds her students not to be tied down by labels, gender, roles, or expectations. That’s why she co-founded AI4ALL. AI4ALL has helped thousands of students from underrepresented backgrounds learn AI for free. She recognizes both the opportunities and threats that AI poses. “Technology is always a double-edged sword,” she says. “Human civilization is a history of innovation. From the day we discovered fire, from the day we discovered that we could crush stones to make an axe, to the invention of the wheel, electricity, cars, airplanes, biotechnology, and now AI, every step of the way, we intend to innovate for good, but as a species we always have a dark side that could potentially use it for harm.” That’s why she feels the Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute is so important. “Tackling these really tough problems requires thought leadership, and you need an ecosystem of people working together to solve these toughest problems,” she says.
She believes her research can advance the potential of AI for the better. And there are so many possibilities. “Many of us are benefiting from AI in our daily lives,” she says. “Literally, if you have a sick child, instead of just talking to a doctor or nurse, you can now have a meaningful conversation with an AI about how you can take care of your child.”
Her family is a multigenerational one, with her parents immigrating together from China and living with her husband and two teenagers. Her parents’ long-term illness led her to become interested in AI for healthcare and elderly care. Her dinner table conversations about AI with her children focus on how AI is both a responsibility and a tool: something to learn from, question, and use for good.
When asked what she would like her children to say when they look back on this moment in history, she did not mention the World Institute, the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, her awards, or her more than 400 scientific publications. “I hope they say I was a good mother,” she says.
There is nothing more human than that.
Wendy Nogle He is the executive editor of entertainment for USA Today. Follow her on Instagram @wendy_naugle.
