.ai

.ai is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) of Anguilla, a British overseas territory. The Government of Anguilla manages this domain. The domain is popular among the companies working in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector. The domain registry platform is Zenaida.Cate.ai, or simply Zenaida.

Rules and Restrictions

The usage must not violate the laws of Anguilla. In particular, fraud is against the law. For example, any domain that is trying to trick users into thinking they are at another website so they will enter their user name and password is committing fraud.

Grounds for suspending or revoking a domain:

• porn that would be illegal in Anguilla, like child porn, revenge porn, etc.;
• violating copyrights;
• hate speech websites;
• phishing;
• has logos or trademarks from a company when they are not affiliated with that company;
• dishonesty (making false representations for financial gain);
• any site promising to help people get rich quick for a fee;
• anything looking like a pyramid scheme, ponzi, or multi-level-marketing site (mlm);
• doing any of the following without an Anguilla license to be a bank, broker, public company, ICO, exchange, or gambling site:
  • holding client deposits;
  • managing investments for clients;
  • executing trades for clients;
  • offering guaranteed returns of any rate;
  • asking for investors;
  • offering trading or exchange services for stock, bond, crypto or other similar markets;
  • any kind of gambling;
  • any site for attacking other sites, like DDOS or other

Also,

• Any sites on a list of scam sites and sites reported by reputable domain monitoring agencies will be suspended.
• If owner of the site has done any of the above with previous domains (even non .ai domains) we can disable a current domain.
• If a site says something like "trusted by" or "in partnership with" and has trademarked logos for other companies and one of those companies says this is not true, the whole site comes down.
• If it is decided that a site has violated any of the above the domain will be suspended. Even if the registrant promises to modify the content, the domain will not be enabled.

Second and third level registrations

Registrations within org.ai, com.ai, net.ai, and off.ai domains globally are not restricted. However, there are certain restrictions regarding top-level domains. The .ai domain has been an Open Use ccTLD since September 2009.

Characters

Letters from "a" to "z", digits from "0" to "9", and "-". Domains can not start or end with "-" and can not have more than one "-" in a row.

Registration

The minimum term allowed for registration within the .ai domain is 2 years, with the same 2-year renewal limit. WHOIS.AI is the central authority responsible for managing the extension. The registration process started on 16 February 1995. The minimum length required at the time of registration was 2, with a maximum of 63 characters. A resident of any country and nationality can register in this domain.

The .ai domain is administered using Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP).

Name Speculation

The ".ai" registry follows Extensible Provisioning Protocol. As a result, the .ai domain is sold by many registrars. That is why .ai ccTLD is also popular among Artificial Intelligence companies. These trends are most popular among newly established AI companies and startups. Many companies do not use the .ai domain to develop their websites. For example, DeepMind used the .com domain to develop its website, and Facebook has changed its domain to ai.facebook.com.

Auctions of expired domains are held periodically at auctions.whois.ai. As of November 2021, expert.ai was the most expensive AI domain ever sold in history. Sedo brokered and mediated the selling of this domain in June 2020. It was sold at the price of €95,000 or $2.9 million.

Impact on Anguilla's Economy

The government of Anguilla collects the registration fee, and it directly goes into its treasury. According to a report published by New York Times, a total of $2.9 million in revenue has been generated through registrations.Anguilla, with its domain name, cashes in on a quirky trend, Chicago Tribune</ref>

According to Forbes, in an article published in January 2024, quoting Vince Cate, manager of domain registrations for the Anguillan government, "in the five months after (the arrival of ChatGPT in November 2022) our sales went up by almost a factor of four. Then they sort of leveled off at this new, much higher level. It’s just wild—we’re already like a third of the government’s budget.” Also, Cate mentions his hope for the future of .ai: "We do the domains for two years, and so all of our money now is new domains. And if we just stay at this level of $3 million per month for new domains, when the renewals kick in a year from now, we’ll just jump to $6 million per month."