Artificial intelligence (AI) has captured the world’s attention and imagination, fueled by controversial breakthroughs such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT which are forever altering life as we know it. The impact of AI has also substantially impacted the domain name world, marked by the recently-surging use of the .ai top-level domain (TLD).

Dan Primack of Axios Pro Rata reported on May 31, 2023, that  .ai domain name registrations were up 156% from May 2022 to May 2023, while .com domains saw a more modest 27% increase during the same period. According to WHOIS data, as of June 14, 2023, the total .ai domain count was of 248,609 domains, nearly doubling the 143,737 domains recorded on July 20, 2022.