Who owns AI.com? The answer will SHOCK you

Artificial intelligence has been the foundation of most technology innovations in the calendar year 2023. The impact of the AI wave has been seen across all major segments and the best part is that it has been solving problems previously too challenging to imagine. And at such a time, a report has noted an interesting situation. The website www.ai.com, which is a crucial domain for all things AI, does not belong to any independent entity. It also does not belong to Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and other big tech corporations that are making major breakthroughs in AI research. So, who owns the domain? The answer is a bit complex.

Who owns AI.com?

Mashable spoke to Jeffrey Gabriel of Saw.com, the broker who claims facilitating its sale. While Gabriel could not outright confirm the ownership of the website due to the terms of the sale, he said, “It obviously becomes public information when you go to it.” Interestingly, the website now forwards you to OpenAI's ChatGPT and that is as big a hint as it can get.

While it is suspected that OpenAI owns the domain due to the obvious ChatGPT link, a quick search at Whois records website, which details the owners of domain names, reveals that it is not OpenAI but Google who actually owns it. According to the information, it was registered in May 1993 with Google LLC listed as the official registrar.

Interested companies

Amazon, for one, had enquired about it prior to the acquisition, according to Gabriel. Surprisingly, companies like Nvidia and Intel, which have heavily invested in AI recently, were not interested in purchasing the domain.

AI.com price

But how much was paid for it? According to Gabriel, a domain like AI.com would be listed at over $10 million in today’s market, and prior to the acquisition, it was listed at a public asking price of $11 million. “Every week, someone was offering a hundred grand, two hundred grand, a million bucks,” he said.