Credit: Tatiana Shepeleva, Shutterstock.com.

GlobalData research has found the top influencers in artificial intelligence based on their performance and engagement online. Using research from GlobalData’s Influencer platform, Verdict has named ten of the most influential people in artificial intelligence on Twitter during Q4 2020.

Biggest influencers in Artificial Intelligence: The top ten in Q4 2020

1. Kirk Borne (@KirkDBorne)

Kirk Borne is a principal data scientist and executive advisor at Booz Allen Hamilton, analytics, digital and engineering consulting firm. He specialises in areas such as consulting in technologies such as big data, machine learning, scientific data mining, observational astronomy, and more.

Go deeper with GlobalData

Data Insights

The gold standard of business intelligence.

Find out more

Related Company Profiles

View all

Borne also serves as an advisory board member of Syntasa, a computer software company, and as an executive committee member of the Astroinformatics and Astrostatistics International Organisations.

Twitter followers: 269,404

GlobalData influencer score: 100

2. Ronald Van Loon (@Ronald_vanLoon)

Ronald Van Loon is a principal analyst and CEO of the Intelligent World, an influencer network that connects people and businesses. He is regarded as a top thought leader in technologies such as AI, IoT, machine learning, and 5G, among others.

Loon also serves as an advisory board member for Simplilearn, an education management company and was the director of Advertisement, an information technology and services company.

Twitter followers: 233,183

GlobalData influencer score: 96

 3. Spiros Margaris (@SpirosMargaris)

Spiros Margaris is a board member and member of the executive committee STC Pay, a financial services firm. A venture capitalist and payment tech consultant, Margaris also serves as an advisory board member of GENTWO, which provides securitisation as a service to its B2B clients through a customised issuance vehicle.

Margaris is the first international influencer to achieve ‘The Triple Crown’ ranking. He is also on the advisory board of wefox Group, and founded Margaris Ventures, a venture capital and private equity firm in 2010.

Twitter followers: 103,150

GlobalData influencer score: 91 

4. Nige Willson (@nigewillson)

Nigel Willson is the founding partner of awakenAI, a personal advisory company. He is also the founding partner of the Springer Nature Group, a publishing firm. He specialises in areas such as AI, innovation, and technology.

Willson is also the co-founder of We and AI, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) which aims to increase public awareness and understanding of the risks and rewards of AI in the UK.

Twitter followers: 56,796

GlobalData influencer score: 87

 5. Ganapathi Pulipaka (@gp_pulipaka)

Dr Ganapathi Pulipaka is a chief data scientist and SAP technical lead at Accenture, an information technology and services company. He has over two decades of experience in SAP across various disciplines including project management and technology integration.

Pulipaka has worked across industries including healthcare, manufacturing, chemical, and more. Prior to this, he served as CEO and chief data scientist of DeepSingularity, an information technology and data science consulting firm.

Twitter followers: 100,293

GlobalData influencer score: 79

 6. Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer)

Robert Scoble is the founder of Scobleizer.blog, which covers information and research on the technology industry. A technology strategist and futurist, Scoble was the first to report on technologies such as autonomous vehicles and Siri.

Scoble served as chief strategy officer of Infinite Retina, an information technology and services company and as a futurist for Rackspace Hosting, helping customers get to the cloud.

Twitter followers: 404,225

GlobalData influencer score: 70

 7. Tamara Mccleary (@TamaraMcCleary)

Tamara McCleary is the founder of Thulium, a social media analytics and consulting agency. She specialises in technologies such as AI, machine learning, data and more, and has played advisor to many global tech companies such as Amazon, Dell, SAP, Oracle Cisco, IBM, and Verizon, among others.

McCleary wis a technology futurist and also hosts technology podcasts such as TechUnknown and SAP Industries Live.

Twitter followers: 308,692

GlobalData influencer score: 62

 8. Sally Eaves (@sallyeaves)

Sally Eaves is a senior policy advisor at the Global Foundation for Cyber Studies and Research, a non-profit think tank on cyber security. She specialises in the scaling and application of emergent technology to socially transform businesses and the society.

Eaves holds in-depth experience in the application and integration of blockchain, AI and related emergent technologies. She is also the official member of the Forbes Technology Council.

Twitter followers: 111,917

GlobalData influencer score: 57

 9. Sandy Carter (@sandy_carter)

Sandy Carter is the vice president of Amazon Web Services, Amazon’s cloud computing business. Carter specialises in areas such as social media, digital, marketing, cloud, the internet of things (IoT), and mobile.

Carter has been involved in several roles across domains including general management, marketing, sales, strategy, and the ecosystem development. She has worked in various capacities with companies such as Silicon Blitz and IBM, among others.

Twitter followers: 81,268

GlobalData influencer score: 56

10. Erik Brynjolfsson (@erikbryn)

Erik Brynjolfsson is the Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI). He is also the director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. His research studies the effects of information technologies on business strategy, digital commerce, productivity and performance, and intangible assets.

Brynjolfsson is a keynote speaker at various events and conferences, and also served as Schussel family professor at the MIT Sloan School.

Twitter followers: 186,885

GlobalData influencer score: 49

 Methodology

GlobalData’s influencer identification framework identifies influencers based on relevance; size of network, connections and followers; engagement levels with their content and analysis and input from sector experts. Influencers are then evaluated on a series of specific topic-related keywords used over the period and weighted by engagement metrics.