Introduction
The .AI domain extension has undergone a remarkable transformation from a modest country-code TLD to one of the fastest-growing domain extensions in the world.
Initially established as Anguilla’s country code in 1995, .AI domains have witnessed explosive growth, particularly between 2022 and 2025, fueled by the artificial intelligence revolution.
This report examines the meteoric rise of these TLDs, analyzing their historical trail, sales performances, and target audiences.
Historical surge of .AI domains in 2020-2023
As artificial intelligence continues to reshape industries across the globe, .AI domains have emerged as powerful digital assets that signal innovation, credibility, and technological relevance in an increasingly AI-driven marketplace.
The journey of .AI domains began far from the tech epicenters that now covet them.
Established in 1995 as Anguilla’s country code top-level domain (ccTLD) in accordance with Standard ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, the .AI extension initially served the small 91 square kilometer British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean.
Then, a pivotal moment came in 2009 when Anguilla lifted registration restrictions, allowing entities worldwide to register .AI domains, with a subsequent partnership with Identity Digital to increase its distribution.
Jumping forward to 2020-2022, the rise of popular AI-based applications like ChatGPT marked the beginning of accelerated interest in this part of the tech industry, together with .AI domains themselves.
Naturally, these TLDs overlap with the AI sector segment, so what was once simply Anguilla’s country code gradually transformed into a coveted digital asset for businesses seeking to align themselves with cutting-edge technology, setting the stage for the explosive growth that would follow.
In fact,
- On May 31, 2023, Axios Pro Rata reported that registrations for .ai domain names had surged by 156% year-over-year, from May 2022 to May 2023. In comparison, .com domains experienced a more modest growth of 27% during the same period.
- As we’ve examined in this article, WHOIS data shows that as of June 14, 2023, there were 248,609 registered .ai domains, almost double the 143,737 recorded on July 20, 2022.
- Finally, we observe high-value sales reaching over $200,000 for premium .AI domains by early 2025, and a record-breaking sale of $700,000 for you.ai in 2023.
Explosive growth from 2022 to 2025
The years between 2022 and 2025 witnessed unprecedented expansion in .AI domain registrations, driven by revolutionary developments in artificial intelligence technologies.
Statistical evidence demonstrates the remarkable pace of this growth: according to Hostinger, between July 2022 and July 2023 alone, the number of registered .ai domains skyrocketed from 75,314 to 196,292, representing an extraordinary 160.77% increase in just twelve months.
This growth trajectory continued through 2024 and into early 2025, with search interest in “ai domain” surging by 203% within a single year.
Speaking of search data, here is a compounded trajectory regarding the search term “.ai domains” on a global scale, including Google trends data and proprietarily examined using Glimpse.
The upward trend is clear, yet it’s also important to notice that several search spikes occur across different months.
Questioning whether this phenomenon might represent a seasonality or not, we have identified that the lowest trends coincided with the second half of the year across the three-year-span 2022-2025 (including Q1 of 2025), yet:
- The majority of the months in Q3 and Q4 of 2024 have a decline but stay on the top part of the curve, over 3k searches globally;
- The recurrently worst performing months seems to be December and September
Several factors contributed to this expansion, including the mainstream breakthrough of generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, aggressive AI development initiatives by major tech companies, and increasing adoption of AI solutions across diverse industries.
By 2025, the .AI extension had firmly established itself as the premier domain choice for artificial intelligence ventures.
Other overviews about .AI registrations confirm their upward trends, showing no signs of slowing, with continuous growth in domains incorporating the “ai” acronym in their extensions.
Thus, for domain investors and resellers, .AI domains represent a lucrative market opportunity.
The Claude example
As we can see by the example of the famous AI company Anthropic, far-sighted domain traders who invested early in .ai extensions gained access to a solid digital identity asset.
ICANN reports claude.ai as registered in 2018, with a current expiration date in 2029, where Claude is the main AI model that the San Francisco-based company offers to the public.
This is a perfect instance to describe how AI startups heavily rely on .AI extensions for brand coherence, as a future investment, and to secure their digital positioning.
Sales performance and .AI domains value
In 2024, .AI domains have demonstrated remarkable sales trends and a consequent reflection in their average price.
Looking at historical data from NameBio, we can see:
Representing an uprising curve for monthly sales, especially at the beginning of Q3 in 2024; and:
Highlighting a coincident spike in the monthly price in the same timeframe.
Then, by early 2025, premium .AI domains were commanding impressive prices in the secondary market, reflecting their strategic importance in the AI industry landscape.
DNJournal’s Year-to-Date Top Sales Chart from March 2025 highlights the significant monetary value achieved by premium .ai domains.
Notably, Ace.ai sold for $205,000, ranking as the ninth highest domain sale across all TLDs and securing the second position on the ccTLD-specific chart:
As stated in their report: “The dominance of .ai continued to be a big story as that TLD accounted for every newcomer to reach the top 30 except one. – DN journal
This concentration and the related price demonstrate both the scarcity of desirable .AI domains and their perceived value as strategic digital assets for businesses positioning themselves in the AI space.
Market Comparison with Traditional TLDs
When compared to established domain extensions, .AI has demonstrated exceptional growth and market performance.
While .com maintained its position as the dominant TLD with approximately 251 million registrations by mid-2023, its annual growth rate of 24% paled in comparison to .AI’s previously explosive quoted increase during the same period.
Similarly, other tech-focused extensions popular among technology companies showed respectable but significantly lower growth rates: .TECH domains increased by 52.25% and .IO domains by 32.6% during the 2022-2023 period.
Additionally, .TECH domain sales over the past six months have averaged $3,309. In this article, we deep dive into the advantages of investing in .TECH and .AI domains.
Who is benefitting from .AI domains?
.AI domains can be a profitable investment for a variety of companies, professionals and agencies.
Large resellers and hosting providers
Large domain resellers and hosting providers can benefit from the .AI domain boom by positioning them for artificial-intelligence-related customers.
In fact, AI had transformed domain reseller programs through
advanced tools and techniques that redefined traditional valuation processes and drove higher revenue potential.
Hosting providers are also already capitalizing on the growing demand for .AI domains by bundling them with AI-optimized hosting solutions, creating comprehensive packages for businesses entering the artificial intelligence space.
Tech-savvy SMBs and IT agencies
For technology-focused small and medium-sized businesses and IT agencies, .AI domains have become powerful branding assets that instantly signal industry relevance and technical sophistication.
These domains provide immediate credibility, communicating to both users and search engines that a business operates in the artificial intelligence field: in a market saturated with generic names, this specificity cna be a game changer in establishing reputation and market positioning.
Freelancers and small web agencies
As businesses across industries invested in artificial intelligence capabilities, smaller service providers can leverage .AI domains to position themselves as specialists in this growing field.
For freelance domain investors, developers and marketers working with AI technologies, adopting an .AI domain helps establish credibility with potential clients and differentiates their services from general web development offerings.
Conclusion
The evolution of .ai domains from 2020 to 2025 represents one of the most remarkable transformations in the domain industry’s recent history. What began as a geographical designation for a small Caribbean island has become the definitive domain extension of the artificial intelligence era, experiencing growth rates that far outpaced traditional and even other technology-focused TLDs.
The market analysis reveals that .ai domains have achieved exceptional monetary valuations, with premium names commanding six-figure sums by early 2025. This growth has delivered substantial economic benefits to various stakeholders, from Anguilla as the ccTLD owner to domain investors, resellers, and the diverse businesses that have adopted these extensions for their online presence.
If you’re looking to jump in and catch the opportunities of .AI domains, you can find a list of .AI available domains here, or register as an Openprovider member to get purchase of .AI domains at wholesale cost.
