What is a .AI domain and why is it so popular?

Introduction

A record-breaking sale of $700,000, more than 600,000 domains and a tenfold spike in sales between 2022 and 2024. This is just the tip of the iceberg to define what is a .AI domain.

As AI technology continues to evolve, the .AI TLD has successfully evolved from a geographic ccTLD into a global tech industry staple.

Its technical reliability, strong branding potential, and close association with the artificial intelligence make it the center of attention for domain managers, businesses owners, marketing agencies and innovators in the AI landscape.

In this article, we’ll deep dive into the history of this TLD and explore its connection with the regulation landscape, ultimately getting a better grasp about why domain resellers’ future ends with a .AI signature.

Table of content

• What is a .AI domain? An administrative and historical perspective
  • Following the .AI trail
  • Adoption of a .AI domain
  • Market related breadcrumbs
• The contribution of core generative AI product releases in 2025
  • ChatGPT 4.5 (OpenAI)
  • DeepSeek
  • Grok 3 (X)
  • Claude Sonnet 3.7 (Anthropic)
  • LLama 3 (Meta.ai)
• Are generative AI and domain cyber security related?
• ICANN, Google and the cold pressure
  • Regulatory considerations and ICANN policy
  • What is a .AI domain in the eye of Google?
• Who acquires .AI domains?
• .AI domains at Openrovider – Closing notes

What is a .AI domain? The administrative and historical perspective

The .AI domain is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean.

However, unlike many ccTLDs that remain tied to their geographic origins, .AI has transcended its regional use and has become one of the most sought-after domain extensions in the tech industry.

Businesses with critical AI applications are naturally the core players who are leveraging this extension: artificial intelligence startups, research labs, and tech enterprises adopted this TLD because of the coherence with their branding and industry.

This decoupling from a mere geographical tie to an industry-related association is not the first of its kind: a similar case regards .IO domains, which originated as the ccTLD for the British Indian Ocean Territory, but evolved into being a core domain asset for tech and startup communities.

As we’ll observe in the following section, this escalation of the .AI distribution happened thanks to a partnership between Anguilla government and a benchmarking US player in the domain industry.

Following the .AI trail 

In 1995, Anguilla received the .AI country code from the International Telecommunication Union.

Fast forwarding to 2021-2022, the surge of the AI industry put the small Caribbean island in a lucky spot: the government started seeing $3 million per month in revenue from domain registrations (with Vince Cate – manager of domain registrations – estimating a contribution of a third of the whole governmental revenue, as per Forbes). 

The GOA – Government of Anguilla – obviously welcomed this opportunity, and opened registrations to businesses and individuals worldwide, ensuring standard domain functionalities like DNS management, WHOIS privacy protection, and SSL compatibility, as well as high uptime, security and stability.

At a government’s press conference in 2021, Haydn Hughes (Minister of Infrastructure and Tourism of Anguilla) stated:

[…] Over the past seven months registered users [of .AI domains – ed] grew by 433 – about 61 users per month. We feel that, if given the opportunity to be marketed on an international level that number should really shoot up a lot more than it is currently doing.

While announcing that the governmental procurement was managing several bids from international companies to outsource and capitalize on the management of these domains.

So, in October 2024, the Caribbean administration entered into a partnership with Identity Digital, a U.S.-based company: this maneuver expanded the distribution and streamlined the registration process, allowing international businesses to acquire .AI domains without geographic restrictions.

Adoption of a .AI domain

The digital landscape has propelled the .AI domain to unprecedented heights.

According to data from Domain Name Wire, the number of domain registrations featuring the ‘AI’ acronym has maintained a consistent upward trajectory.

A key factor in .AI’s adoption is its accessibility: unlike restrictive ccTLDs, .AI allows global registrations at both second and third levels without local presence requirements.

Nonetheless, .AI domains require a mandatory two-year registration, reinforcing long-term commitment from registrants and maintaining a premium pricing standard in this niche.

Market related breadcrumbs

Here are some other easy-read news related to the numbers that revolve around .AI domains:

• Data from Domain Name Stat reports 632,450 registered .AI domains as per March 2025, marking another milestone in its consistent growth (and 1,680,586 registered .IO domains, further highlighting the demand for tech-oriented TLDs).
• Several sources mentions WHOIS data about .AI historical registration count: as of June 2023, the total .AI domain count was of 248,609 domains, nearly doubling the 143,737 domains recorded in July 2022. 
• .AI domains generated about $3 million per month for Anguilla, with total revenue reaching $28.4 million in 2023 (as per gov.ai and other sources).
• According to NameBio, the second highest performer in the first half of 2024 was .AI, with more than $5.54 million in reported sales (as seen in NamePros)
• In early 2025, there was a 46% year-over-year increase in created .ai domains compared to 2024, according to Identity Digital
• This record-breaking sale in 2023 was the highest publicly reported transaction for an .ai domain (you.ai), amounting to $700,000.

The contribution of core generative AI product releases in 2025

The whole AI market is naturally contributing to the .AI domain surge, both indirectly and directly.

In fact, some of the most well-known AI-driven organizations use .AI domains in their extensions and, those who don’t, are still contributing to the overall growth of this side of the tech industry.

Examples of startups like Stability.ai and Anthropic.ai signal their business focus directly, whereas established firms like Google.ai use it to spotlight AI divisions.

Here is a short list with some of the latest generative AI models launched by renown industry players, and contributing to the growth of the sector:

ChatGPT 4.5 (OpenAI)

OpenAI has released GPT-4.5, their latest AI model, which enhances natural interactions and improves user intent comprehension. While OpenAI doesn’t directly use a .AI domain, they previously owned AI.com, highlighting the importance of AI-related domains in the industry.

DeepSeek

The AI.com domain now redirects to DeepSeek’s official website, signifying DeepSeek’s growing prominence in the AI field. This strategic use of the .AI domain extension demonstrates the company’s focus on artificial intelligence and its efforts to increase visibility.

Grok 3 (X)

Grok 3 relies on Elon Musk’s x.AI domain to distribute and represent X’s (ex-Twitter) native model.

Claude Sonnet 3.7 (Anthropic)

Anthropic has introduced Claude 3.7 Sonnet, featuring a new approach for structured reasoning tasks. Although the main website is a .com, Claude’s website is directly tied to its homonymous .AI domain.

LLama 3 (Meta.ai)

LLama 3, including its latest model series (3.1, 3.2 and 3.3) is connected to Meta’s dedicated domain with a dot AI extension.

Are generative AI and domain cyber security related?  

Paraphrasing the ICANN’s 81st Annual General Meeting in November 2024, generative AI allows the randomization of each specific domain or URL.

This means that cyber-attackers can scale up their operations by registering domains at unpredictable times and dates.

Consequently, there is an emerging need for innovative strategies to maintain a secure cyber environment.

Both private and semi-governmental organizations are now focusing on developing technological and behavioral solutions, including AI-based approaches, which are expected to produce beneficial ripple effects for the SEO industry and the broader cyberspace.

In this context, partnering with domain providers that have robust security frameworks is more important than ever.

ICANN, Google and the cold pressure

When the market shows an opportunity to boost the growth of a local domain, we can’t judge the book by its cover.

From one side, we have the enormous economic advantage for a country, with a certain control over the operational side, policed and approved by ICANN.

On the other hand, we observe the complex dynamics of the search industry, where Google still has a de facto monopoly, and where the algorithms can treat a domain not as geographical, but as a generic one.

In other words, when a search engine recognizes a wide adoption of a specific domain extension, it will put it under its wing (using general search algorithms), instead of automatizing its targeting with geo-localization only.

This means fragmenting both the revenue drivers and the regulatory power for that domain.

In fact, in 2023 Perin A. Bradley – Governor of Anguilla – signed a document issued by the Ministry of Finance and Health, stating:

Let me first discuss an important facet of our fiscal policy, particularly considering the increased revenues from our highly valuable .ai domain name registrations. It is indeed a moment of pride and potential for our island, but it also calls for a moment of introspection and caution.¹

And,

[…] it is crucial to remember that our financial planning cannot solely rely on the revenues from the .ai domain name registrations. We must acknowledge that these revenue streams, while robust, are not under the direct control of our government. The digital landscape is ever-changing, and what seems like a perennial source today can rapidly evolve tomorrow

Again, this emphasizes the need for prudent fiscal strategies, given that these revenues are not entirely under the government’s direct control.

Regulatory considerations and ICANN policy

ICANN fosters the concept for which the respective country’s designated authority can manage the registration and accreditation of ccTLDs like .ai, as per their registration policies and management practices.

So, while it oversees the broader framework of domain name system management, and helps ccTLD operators to ensure security and resolve technical issues, it does not directly control the operational aspects of ccTLDs.

However, registry agreements allow commercial operators substantial discretion in marketing and management practices.

The implicit meaning of this is that a non-geo-localized treatment of .AI domains from Google could create a cold, unofficial pressure on ICANN to reconsider TLD classification frameworks that originated in the 1990s.

What is a .AI domain in the eye of Google?

To complete this context overview, we can’t avoid considering how .AI domains position compared to Google’s TLD classification framework.

As mentioned before, Google’s webmaster guidelines maintain a distinction between gTLDs (generic top-level domains) and ccTLDs in search ranking systems.

While the company doesn’t exactly publish a complete, exhaustive list of domain classifications, in 2023, they published an update including .AI domains in the gTLD list.

This approach contrasts with other ccTLDs that receive automatic geotargeting in Google Search Console.

For instance, websites using .de domains are automatically associated with Germany unless manually adjusted: the absence of similar geographic association for .AI domains confirms that Google’s systems classify them outside standard ccTLD handling.

Finally, Google’s public Search Relation team representative, Gary Illyes, had previously stated: “We won’t infer the target country from the ccTLD so targeting Anguilla became a little harder, but then again there are barely any .ai domains that try to do that anyway.”

Yet, others could argue that .AI domains might be treated favorably in search engine algorithms due to their ccTLD status, offering potential SEO benefits for businesses targeting AI-related keywords.

Looking back to see the future

The AI extension is an example of change in the search logic.

As the paradigm shifts from thinking how to pigeon-hole a TLD to what a TLD can become, we notice how a compound of market trends can drive the lifecycle of a domain extension.

While regulation entities like ICANN remain the pillar of healthy domain management and of cyber-safety in general, market changes can determine the level of success of a specific extension.

In the same way, the .AI precedent gives space to think about developing trends in search engine-domain interactions:

• Emergence of semantic gTLD: search algorithms increasingly weight TLD meaning over registry classification
• Geo-TLD decoupling: commercial success might enable ccTLDs to transcend geographic associations
• Brand-CCTLD fusion: corporations can adopt meaningful ccTLDs as primary brand addresses

Who acquires .AI domains?

Domain resellers who are looking to boost their trades for .AI domains, should focus on coherently targeted leads.

Given its strong association with artificial intelligence, an .AI domain is best suited for businesses, research organizations, and professionals working in the industry. This includes:

• Domain owners and traders that want to expand their portfolio and navigate the AI trend
• Hosting providers looking to buy TLDs at wholesale price and manage them in bulk
• Marketing agencies reselling and handling domains for their clients
• Digital solopreneurs and AI consultants, as well as independent developers

Other than:

• AI startups looking to establish a strong brand presence
• Machine learning and deep learning research labs
• Robotics and automation companies
• AI-driven software and cloud computing firms
• Venture capital firms and investment groups specializing in AI

Overall, this extension is part of a growing, yet untapped niche, and reinforces businesses’ digital position in the tech ecosystem, leveraging a catchy and profitable TLD.

.AI domains at Openrovider – Closing notes

At Openprovider we are observing information that’s consistent with the growth of .AI TLDs.
For instance, a social poll that we have conducted on LinkedIn confirms a critical tendency towards .AI TLD performance:

As the undeniable growth of these TLDs offers a gap in the market, exploiting its opportunities should always pair up with a set of core features, including:

• DNS Management
• Whois privacy protection
• Domain forwarding
• Domain Lock – to prevent unauthorized changes or transfers of a domain name
• Premium domains 

In our mission to help domain resellers and digital businesses stay ahead of the AI curve, we work relentlessly to offer secure purchases of .AI domains free of any markup via our membership-based model.

Sources

1: ESTIMATES OF RECURRENT REVENUE, EXPENDITURE & CAPITAL, GOA, 2024