.AI, that has surged in popularity amid the global artificial intelligence wave, will soon begin to fade. His logic is pretty straightforward: the number of registrations and domains for sale far exceeds the number of successful AI companies. In his view, the sector shows clear signs of a typical speculative bubble: venture capital continues to pour into increasingly numerous startups, half of which lack viable business models and are destined to collapse. When these companies begin to shut down, the hype surrounding .AI will deflate accordingly. Investors will be left holding large portfolios of Anguilla domain names with high renewal fees and little or no market value. According to Mann, although .AI is peaking now, a sharp downturn is inevitable.
Mann’s authority in the domain world is widely acknowledged, yet investor and analyst Mike Sullivan disagreed with him on his blog. Sullivan concedes much of Mann’s reasoning and even labels the current .AI hype “artificial” and “speculative.” However, he argues that the popularity of .AI is fundamentally different from earlier short-lived surges, such as those seen with .MOBI or .CLUB. Unlike those extensions, AI is the name of a transformative global industry that will not go away but continue to grow and shape our society.
Today’s largest .AI sales are not speculative investor-to-investor flips. Instead, established companies that have already started to earn enough for such purchases are buying these names. Perplexity.ai (company, not the domain name), for example, has already achieved a valuation exceeding $1 billion. Other projects such as Character.ai and Synthesia.ai are rapidly expanding as well. While many AI startups will inevitably fail, Sullivan stresses that many truly successful long-lasting players will emerge in this sector.
So, what future awaits .AI? Mike Sullivan calls it maturing, not peaking and declining. Meaningful one- or two-word domain names will remain exceptionally valuable – more so than equivalent names in most other domain extensions. However, he fully agrees with Mann that those who purchased .AI domains en masse in the hope of easy resale will face a harsh market correction.
