.ai

Last updated
.ai
DotAI logo.svg
Introduced16 February 1995
TLD type Country code top-level domain
StatusActive
Registry Identity Digital
Sponsor Government of Anguilla
Intended useEntities connected with Anguilla
Actual useSome use in Anguilla; very popular with companies and websites related to artificial intelligence (AI).
Registered domains904,276 (30 September 2025) [1]
Registration restrictionsNone
StructureRegistrations possible at third level, beneath several second-level labels, are available to anybody; second-level registrations are now available to anybody as well (as of 26 June 2006).
Dispute policies UDRP
DNSSEC Yes
Registry website www.nic.ai

.ai is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is administered by the government of Anguilla.

Contents

It is a popular domain hack with companies and projects related to the artificial intelligence industry (AI). [2] [3] [4]

Google's ad targeting treats .ai as a generic top-level domain (gTLD) because "users and website owners frequently see [the domain] as being more generic than country-targeted." [5]

In 2021, Google Search analyst Gary Illyes announced that ".ai" had been added to Google’s list of generic country-code top-level domains, meaning that Google would no longer infer Anguilla-specific targeting from the ccTLD. [6]

Identity Digital began managing the domain as of January 2025. [7]

Second and third level registrations

Registrations within off.ai, com.ai, net.ai, and org.ai are available worldwide without restriction. From 15 September 2009, second level registrations within .ai are available to everyone worldwide.

Registration

The minimum registration term allowed for .ai domains is 2 through 10 years for registration and renewal, and a 2-year renewal for domain transfer. [8] Identity Digital is the authority in charge of managing this extension. Registrations began on 16 February 1995. The limits on the number of characters used for the domain name are, at a minimum, from 1 to 3, depending on the registrar, and always at most 63 characters. [a] The character set supported for .ai domain names includes A–Z, a–z, 0–9, and hyphen. As of November 2022, .ai domains cannot accommodate IDN characters. [10] There are no requirements for registering a domain, including local and foreign residents. [8]

A .ai domain can be suspended or revoked, if the domain is involved in illegal activity such as violating trademarks or copyrights. Usage must not violate the laws of Anguilla. [13]

Anguilla uses the UDRP. Filing a UDRP challenge requires using one of the ICANN Approved Dispute Resolution Service Providers. If the domain is with an ICANN accredited registrar, they should work with the arbitrator. Usually this means either doing nothing or transferring a domain. .ai domains are transferable to any desired registrars as the registration of domain is done maintaining EPP. [14]

There used to be a whois.ai-based platform of expired domains in which those could be procured and auctioned every ten days through a standard online process. [15] The last auctions of such kind closed there in December 2024; the platform had been scheduled for shutdown on 30 June 2025, [16] but remained online in the months following that date. [17] [18] [19] [20]

Valuation

Domains cost depends on the registrar, with yearly fees ranging from US$140 (the base fee, as established by Anguilla) to $200. [21] [22] As of July 2025, the highest-valued .ai domain is an undisclosed one sold on 8 November 2023, on Escrow.com, for US$1,500,000—months after an initial $300,000 sale to the same buyer. [23] Among the publicly disclosed ones, the most valued, fin.ai, was sold for $1,000,000 in March 2025. [24] [25]

On 16 December 2017, the .ai registry started supporting the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) and migrated all of its domains onto an EPP system. [26] [27] Consequently, many registrars are allowed to sell .ai domains. Since that date, the .ai ccTLD has also been popular with artificial intelligence companies and organizations. Though such trends are primarily seen among new AI based companies or startups, many established AI and Tech companies preferred not to opt for .ai domains. For example, DeepMind has its domain retained at .com; Meta has redirected its facebook.ai domain to ai.meta.com. [28]

Impact on Anguilla's economy

The registration fees earned from the .ai domains go to the treasury of the Government of Anguilla. As per a 2018 New York Times report, the total revenue generated out of selling .ai domains was $2.9 million. [29] [30]

In 2023, Anguilla's government made about US$32 million from fees collected for registering .ai domains; that amounted to over 10% of gross domestic product for the territory. [31] [32]

"In the years before the real breakthrough of AI, revenue from .ai domains made up less than 1% of our state income, by 2025 it will be around 47%," explained Jose Vanterpool, Minister of Infrastructure and Communications (MICUHITES), in an interview with BBC. [33]

The high 90% renewal rate of .ai domains and the 2025 renewal wave of domains registered in 2023 are driving another surge in state revenues, according to Domaintechnik. [34]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Examples:

References

  1. ↑ "TLD info .ai". whois.ai. Retrieved 30 September 2025.
  2. ↑ Purnell, Newley; Olson, Parmy (14 August 2019). "AI Startup Boom Raises Questions of Exaggerated Tech Savvy" . Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 14 August 2019. Retrieved 27 January 2020– via www.wsj.com.
  3. ↑ "What's in a Name? Trends in Creating Robot and AI Company Names". Robotics Business Review. 12 June 2019. Archived from the original on 8 June 2023. Retrieved 27 January 2020.
  4. ↑ Tung, Liam. "Why one tiny island is still a domain name giant". ZDNet.
  5. ↑ "Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites". Archived from the original on 5 October 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2019.
  6. ↑ Illyes, Gary. "We just added .ai to the list of generic country code top level domains". Linkedin. Retrieved 30 September 2025.
  7. ↑ Allemann, Andrew (23 January 2025). "Identity Digital is now managing .AI domains. Here's what this means for registrants". Domain Name Wire. Retrieved 10 February 2025.
  8. 1 2 V, Sky. ".AI Domain Policies". OpenSRS Customer Support. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
  9. ↑ "OpenSRS TLD Reference Chart". Google Docs. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
  10. 1 2 "GoDaddy - About .ai Domains". www.godaddy.com. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
  11. ↑ ".AI domain name registration". EuroDNS. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
  12. ↑ Mark (15 July 2024). "About .ai Domains -". Truehost. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
  13. ↑ ".AI Domain". domaintyper.com. Retrieved 15 October 2021.
  14. ↑ "Whois ai". whois.ai. Archived from the original on 8 March 2024. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  15. ↑ ".ai Domain Closed Auctions". auction.whois.ai. Archived from the original on 8 June 2025. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
  16. ↑ ".ai Domain Auctions Homepage". auction.whois.ai. Archived from the original on 8 June 2025. Retrieved 15 June 2025.
  17. ↑ ".ai Domain Auctions Homepage". auction.whois.ai. Archived from the original on 10 July 2025.
  18. ↑ "Check if a website is down". OnlineOrNot. 10 July 2025.
  19. ↑ ".ai Domain Auctions Homepage". auction.whois.ai. Archived from the original on 7 October 2025.
  20. ↑ "Check website performance and response: Check host - online website monitoring". Check host. 7 October 2025.
  21. ↑ "How Much Does a Domain Name Cost? A Full Breakdown of Domain, Hosting, and Website Fees". Unstoppable Domains. 6 June 2025. Retrieved 10 July 2025.
  22. ↑ Lee, Sophia (26 March 2024). "Why Are AI Domains So Expensive? The Surprising Truth § 3. Anguilla's Fixed Wholesale Price". NameHero® Blog. Archived from the original on 18 December 2024. Retrieved 7 July 2025.
  23. ↑ Silverberg, David (8 November 2023). "The race to buy AI website addresses". BBC News . Retrieved 10 July 2025.
  24. ↑ "Top reported .ai domain sales". cognitive.ai. Archived from the original on 7 June 2025. Retrieved 10 July 2025.
  25. ↑ Oli, Arjun (3 April 2025). ".ai - He possesses incredibly valuable .AI domain names". NamePros Forum. Retrieved 10 July 2025. Congratulations [on] the booming sales of Fin.ai and Qwen.ai! Fin.ai reached an impressive $1 million sale[.]
  26. ↑ "EPP FAQ". whois.ai. Question 25: "The Dec 16, 2017 registration date seems wrong". Archived from the original on 30 April 2020. When domains were loaded onto epp.whois.ai on Dec 16, 2017 the new system took that as the birthday for all the domains. […] The expiration dates were correctly handled during the migration[.]
  27. ↑ Baidu Online Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. v. Forgetmyface / 盛军强 (Junqiang Sheng a/k/a Johnny Sheng) and 吴比 (Wubi), ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL DECISIONCase No. DAI2023-0050 , page 2, note 1( World Intellectual Property Organization 8 February 2024)("The Panel notes that there was a technical migration of domain names within the [.ai registry] to a system using the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (“EPP”). As a result, the registration date for a particular domain name in the “.ai” ccTLD, reflected in WhoIs records around December 16, 2017, may not be accurate.").
  28. ↑ Chawla, Vishal (8 March 2020). "Is .AI Domain Name Extension Any Valuable For AI Startups Or Just A Marketing Ploy?". Analytics India Magazine. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  29. ↑ Lohr, Steve (4 February 2020). "Tropical Breezes, Pristine Beaches and a Domain Name to Die For". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  30. ↑ Lohr, Steve (4 February 2020). "Anguilla, with its domain name, cashes in on a quirky trend". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 10 November 2021.
  31. ↑ Collins, Barry. "The Tiny Caribbean Island That's Making A Fortune From AI". Forbes. Retrieved 25 March 2024.
  32. ↑ "AI boom makes millions for unlikely industry player, Anguilla". The Straits Times. 24 March 2024. ISSN   0585-3923 . Retrieved 25 March 2024.
  33. ↑ ".ai to generate nearly half of Anguilla's revenue this year, tech minister tells BBC". Anguilla Focus. Retrieved 30 September 2025.
  34. ↑ "How AI Is Making the Caribbean Island of Anguilla Rich" (PDF). Domaintechnik. Retrieved 30 September 2025.
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