Early this morning, Andy Booth tweeted about AI.com, asking if the domain name was acquired by ChatGPT. Andy presumably asked because the AI.com domain name is now forwarding to the ChatGPT website, a popular AI chatbot.
Was https://t.co/s0wSPMb5dP bought by ChatGPT?
— Andy Booth (@360) February 15, 2023
AI.com had long been owned by Future Media Architects (FMA). In September of 2021, I reported on the sale of AI.com. The deal was brokered by Saw.com, which has long represented FMA on its domain name sales. In my article about the sale, I shared what I understood to be the asking price of AI.com along with a comment from Saw.com Founder and CEO Jeff Gabriel:
Jeff responded to my query and confirmed that AI.com has been sold by FMA. Although the purchase price is not going to be announced, I understand the asking price for AI.com was $11 million. Jeff told me it was sold “to someone in the NFT space.” He also said, “I am elated for the buyer and the seller.”
I am not sure if OpenAI acquired AI.com, but it would make sense. OpenAI, with its ChatGPT chatbot is one of buzziest startups around. It would be interesting to know if Saw brokered the sale of AI.com to someone associated with OpenAI, or if the buyer of the domain name in September of 2021 resold it to someone associated with OpenAI. This assumes someone associated with OpenAI acquired AI.com rather than forwarding AI.com for an unknown reason.
AI.com is currently registered under Whois privacy at Google’s domain registrar, while OpenAI.com is registered at Gandi. AI.com uses Cloudflare for its nameservers while OpenAI uses Azure nameservers. Neither of these things necessarily mean anything, particularly since AI.com is simply used for forwarding right now. However, it does mean that we do not know who currently owns AI.com.
If OpenAI acquired AI.com, I would consider that a very smart acquisition. The company has raised a ton of money at a huge valuation. Owning a category defining asset like AI.com would show dominance in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence.
I asked ChatCPT if OpenAI acquired AI.com. Here’s the response that was shared:
“I’m sorry, but as an AI language model, I don’t have access to up-to-date information about OpenAI’s business deals or acquisitions. However, as of my knowledge cutoff date of September 2021, OpenAI did not publicly announce the acquisition of the AI.com domain name. It’s possible that OpenAI may have acquired the domain name since then, but I don’t have any information to confirm that.”
Interestingly, you’ll note the OpenAI knowledge cut-off date is right around when the AI.com sale was initially reported.
I reached out to OpenAI to ask if the company acquired AI.com, and if so, how much the domain name cost. I will update the article if I hear back.
It was a a weak telegram group few days ago. I don’t believe openai bought it, just someone forwarding it.