2025 was a pretty good year for domain name sales. Namebio shows nearly $250 million in domain name sales closed last year, and that number will certainly jump when previously unreported domain name sales are publicized or discovered. NameBio took down the ability for me to search 2024 sales, but with just shy of $1 billion in sales over 5 years, it feels like it has been a pretty good year comparatively.
Going into the year, it seemed like we were primed for a sea change of AI-related advancements. I thought there would be improved tools related to domain name search and discovery that could help me find and evaluate domain names to buy. This did not come to fruition for the most part. Perhaps it’s my lack of prompting skills or maybe I just can’t see AI integrations in the tools I have always used, but I don’t think I am much better off with AI tools than I was a year ago.
I have used AI throughout the year to find domain names to register. Previously, I did multiple searches to find keywords and put them together. I would then create lists of domain names to search and register what I like. AI tools like ChatGPT and Grok helped me discover unregistered domain names in a quicker way, and I registered more domain names this past year than ever before.
Where AI really helped was related to domain name sales. Not just my sales, but I think AI helped juice the market in the same way crypto helped push the domain name aftermarket higher in years past. There were many new AI related businesses that launched and needed good domain names. Marketplaces and platforms that integrated AI helped customers discover domain names that were for sale and that probably drove a meaningful number of sales.
This was not just .AI domain names but upgrades for companies that are in the AI-space. I can’t easily compare the number of .AI sales to the prior year, but it feels like there were many more .AI domain name sales in 2025. It’s difficult to fully distinguish investor vs. retail sales as speculation for .AI domain names continues to proliferate amongst investors.
My personal feeling is we will continue to see high dollar deals on the best AI-related domain names and domain names that are bought by companies with frothy AI-related valuations. Assuming market prognosticators who are comparing AI to the .com bubble are correct, I would not be surprised to see a pull back at some point in 2026. If a pullback happens, that will impact domain names, especially those that are “mid,” as my kids say.
I would not be surprised to see considerable AI advancements in 2026, but I would also not be surprised to see many AI related businesses fail. I am buying cautiously right now and will keep some powder dry in the event good opportunities present themselves in the coming year.
All in all, I think 2025 was a good year and there is strength going into 2026. For the last few years, domain market gains were partially driven by the crypto market, and I think they are now being driven by AI.
