In light of what I wrote about the domain name market in 2025, I thought I would ask ChatGPT to evaluate the domain name space for last year and going forward into 2026. Here’s the prompt I used:
“Write a short article giving your opinion on the state of the domain name market and aftermarket for the last year, with an emphasis on how domain investors have been impacted. In addition, provide some commentary on how you think things will progress in 2026 for domain investors.”
Here’s how Chat.com responded:
“The domain name market over the past year has been solid, but uneven. Sales volume remained healthy, yet it became increasingly clear that not all inventory benefited equally. Strong, commercially relevant .com domain names continued to sell, while weaker names struggled to attract meaningful interest. The gap between high quality and marginal inventory widened.
For domain investors, this was a year that rewarded discipline. Investors holding one word .com domain names, strong two word .com domain names, and clear category terms generally saw steady inbound interest. Buyers were cautious, budget conscious, and focused on names that reduced branding risk. At the same time, portfolios filled with speculative or lower quality names felt pressure from renewals, slower sell through, and increased competition across marketplaces.
Higher renewal costs over the past couple of years have quietly reshaped investor behavior. Many investors became more selective, trimming portfolios and reallocating capital toward fewer, better assets. That trend accelerated this year. Rather than chasing volume, investors increasingly focused on efficiency, liquidity, and confidence in long term value.
Distribution continued to improve, particularly through large marketplaces, making it easier for buyers to find and purchase domain names. That efficiency helped close deals faster, but it also increased transparency. Pricing that was even slightly out of line was exposed quickly, forcing investors to be more realistic and intentional with their expectations.
Looking ahead to 2026, I expect these dynamics to continue and intensify. Quality will matter even more. Investors who concentrate capital into premium assets should benefit from consistent demand and better negotiating leverage. Marginal inventory will become harder to justify holding, especially if renewal costs rise again or capital becomes more constrained.
I also expect faster transactions and more buy now behavior as marketplaces continue to streamline checkout and transfers. That favors investors who price clearly, reduce friction, and treat domain names as a retail asset rather than a speculative lottery ticket.
In short, the domain name market is healthy, but it is no longer forgiving. For investors, 2026 is likely to reward focus, patience, and restraint. Owning fewer domain names, but better ones, will continue to be the most reliable strategy.”
That’s a lot of fluff you got from ChatGPT. I tried the exact same prompt on Gemini instead and got something a lot less worse:
Opinion: The Year of the “Flight to Quality” – and Why 2026 Won’t Be for Tourists
If 2024 was the year of speculative hype, 2025 was the year the domain market sobered up, put on a suit, and demanded to see the balance sheet. For domain investors, the last twelve months haven’t just been about price action; they’ve been a stress test of strategy.
Looking back at the state of the market in 2025, one theme dominates: The Flight to Quality. The gap between “premium” and “everything else” has widened into a canyon, leaving casual investors stranded while portfolio pros consolidated their wins.
2025 Retrospective: The “Barbell” Market
The aftermarket in 2025 effectively split into two distinct realities.
1. The .Com Fortress Held Firm (But Entry is Closed) The sale of Icon.com for $12 million (and others like Commerce.com for $2.4M) proved that in a fractured internet, .com is still the only asset class that matters to the Fortune 500. For investors, however, this segment became a “closed shop.” The days of hand-registering a decent .com or snapping one up for pennies in an expired auction are mathematically over. In 2025, we saw the mid-tier .com market ($5k–$50k range) become highly liquid, but only for those who held inventory from a decade ago. If you were buying in 2025 to flip in 2025, margins were razor-thin.
2. The .AI “Gold Rush” became a “Gold Mine” (for some) Contrary to the bears who predicted an implosion, .ai did not crash in 2025—it matured. With sales like Rush.ai ($300k) and Breeze.ai ($225k), the extension cemented itself as the tech sector’s de facto address. However, the “easy flips” vanished. In early 2024, you could sell AnyNoun.ai for $5,000. In 2025, buyers became sophisticated. They stopped buying “AI + Word” and started buying branded, single-word assets. Investors holding low-quality generative AI names (e.g., BestFastAI-Tools.ai) are likely sitting on renewal fees they can’t cover.
3. The Churn of the New gTLDs While new gTLD registrations grew by over 20% in 2025, the renewal rates tell a grim story (~32%). This confirms what many seasoned investors suspected: these are “burner” domains. For the investor, this segment remains a trap. High registration numbers are vanity metrics; without a robust aftermarket, they are liabilities, not assets.
The Investor Squeeze: Renewal Discipline
The silent killer for portfolios in 2025 was the rising cost of holding inventory. With .com wholesale prices ticking up and inflation impacting discretionary spending, the “hold forever” strategy became expensive. 2025 forced investors to purge weak assets, flooding the expiry streams with decent—but not great—names. The smart money spent 2025 pruning, not planting.
2026 Outlook: The Era of “Digital Utility”
As we look toward 2026, I believe the domain investment landscape will pivot from speculation to utility. Here is how I see the board developing:
1. The “Post-Hype” AI Correction
In 2026, the AI market will move from evangelism (hype) to evaluation (ROI). Companies will stop buying .ai domains just to signal they use AI. Instead, we will see a resurgence of Brandable Non-Coms (.io, .co, .vc) as AI becomes a standard feature, not a unique selling point. If every company is an AI company, no one needs to say it in their URL. Investors heavily over-leveraged in generic .ai keywords may face a liquidity crunch.
2. Security as a Value Driver
With NIS2 directives and rising phishing attacks, 2026 will be the year Trust becomes a valuation metric. Aged domains with clean histories will command a premium over fresh drops. Investors who can prove the “pedigree” of a domain (no history of spam/abuse) will find faster sales to corporate buyers who are terrified of compliance risks.
3. The Rise of “Agent-Readable” Domains
This is my wildcard prediction for 2026. As AI agents (like the one you are talking to) increasingly navigate the web for users, domain names that are semantically clear to an LLM (Large Language Model) will increase in value. Ambiguous creative spellings (e.g., Flickr or Lyft style) might lose slight favor to descriptive, authoritative domains that AI agents can instantly categorize as “high confidence” sources of information.
Summary for Investors
If 2025 was about pruning your portfolio, 2026 should be about specialization. The generalist investor is an endangered species. Pick a vertical (Legal, Health, distinct Tech), understand its vocabulary better than the experts, and buy the names they will need five years from now.