When tech entrepreneur Ian Leaman needed to buy a website address for his new artificial intelligence start-up he found that he had an expensive problem.
In December of last year, he checked whether his prospective domain name Pantry.ai was not already occupied.
Some years before Mr Leaman had applied for this URL and regrettably someone else had registered it first thus Mr Leaman had to talk with that person to know if they were willing to sell it off to them.
According to Mr Leaman, “I offered him two thousand dollars and he requested twelve thousand dollars.” Then I said seven thousand and he insisted he was fixed at twelve,
We settled upon 12 thousand dollars if it can be paid in installments.
After buying Pantry.ai, Mr Leaman is glad that he obtained an exceptional domain name with a “strong noun”. According to some reports, it is becoming more difficult to attain the former, while the latter is relatively rarer at present.
Thus, having a New Yorker called Pantry AI, he thought to check in December 2018 and make sure that pantry.ai was not taken yet.
However, Mr. Leaman soon discovered from the registration office that this address had been previously registered by another person several years back and so Mr. Leaman had to call up the owner so they could negotiate over selling the address to him.
As Mr Leaman explains, “I proposed $2,500 (£1,647) and he mentioned that he only accepts $12,000”. That is where I said I wanted to give him $7,000 and he wouldn’t budge from the price of $12,000.
I suggested that ten thousand dollars would suffice providing it was done with monthly installments.
Talking about his acquisition of www.pantry.ai, Mr Leaman declares that costly as it was for him to purchase such domain, he is glad because his new possession contains ‘’strong noun’’ into it. It is getting harder and harder to find the former.
That $12,000 might seem steep, but it’s actually on the lower side of what people are shelling out for domain names with “AI” in them, especially if it’s the ending part like .com or .co.uk.
This year, a web address like npc.ai raked in a whopping $250,000, and another one, service.ai, fetched $127,500, as reported. These eye-popping numbers are a result of the intense excitement around AI startups and tech.
So, how does snagging a domain name work? Well, there are over 1,000 domain registrars, all approved by a global organization called The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names.
You go to one of these registrar websites, type in the name you want, and it’ll let you know if it’s up for grabs or already taken.
If the website address is available, you can simply pay a small amount, sometimes as low as £15 a year, to claim it as yours. But if it’s already taken and you really want it, you’ll need to contact a domain brokerage. These businesses specialize in buying and selling website addresses.
For a fee, the broker will reach out to the current owner, check if they’re willing to sell, and try to make a deal happen.
According to Joe Udemme, the CEO of the US-based domain brokerage Name Experts, the demand for AI-related website names has skyrocketed in the past year.
He adds: “I’m seeing sales of around $5K – $100K for people wanting dot ai extensions.” “Companies need something catchy but small.”
According to reports submitted by Escrow.com to the bbc, the total sum amounted to about 20 million dollars for the domain names that had AI as part of their name during august of this current year when compared to 7 million dollars recorded last year.
On the other hand, another retailer, Afternic, suggests that this phrase AI is today number two at the domains’ addresses sold by its marketplace.
He states for instance that “for those who want .ai suffixes I’m observing sales at around low five figure sometimes even in the six figures”. “The best thing for a company should be brief and catchy”.
By August this year, the value of all domain names including artificial intelligence had already reached an estimated $20 million, as told to the BBC by another broker, Escrow.
A third brokerage named Afternic indicates that the words AI become the second most common terms used for websites URLs.
“Start-ups hunting for their online identity and folks looking to turn a profit are both snatching up these AI domains,” explains Matt Barrie, the CEO of Escrow.
He shares a story of a domain name speculator who bought an AI website name for $300,000, only to flip it a few months later for a cool $1.5 million. “There are players in the game who recognize that companies crave top-notch branding.”
While it can be a pricey venture for AI firms to secure their preferred website address, Mr. Barrie emphasizes that having “a short and clean” domain can boost a company’s visibility in internet search results and make it more memorable for consumers.
“Think of a premium domain as a long-term discount on your marketing expenses,” suggests Mr. Barrie.
According to Mr. Udemme, the top domain name of the most visited websites among AI companies is made up of a short word ending with dot ai.
“In other words, consider a scenario with one word and beachfront digital real estate,” he says. “After you establish that, nobody will be allowed to build before you but after you.”
In this regard, Mr Leaman concurs noting that he would rather have his company known as Mr Leaman vs Pantry.ai instead of PantryAI.com. He provides companies that make consumer goods and his business with AI that helps them accurately calculate the number of products required from their future orders and forecast future demands respectively.
MediaOption’s chief executive, Andrew Rosener, asserts that this spike of AI-related website addresses leaving e-store shelves is a trend that will remain forever.
“AI is not a fad like it was with cryptocurrency where everyone and their grandma was buying in. They were getting all the investment cash flowing in, and companies were trying showing off how AI-forward they were to vendors and consumers.”
However, he cautions business not to just purchase AI-centric domain names because this is a trendy tech moment. According to Mr Rosner, “I can not recommend my clients to spend too much for ‘AI’ added to their domain for having it cool.” That decision will only count if your company is AI-centric.ederbörd.
According to Mr Udemme, many of the websites used by AI companies are usually only one-word with an additional “.ai” suffix.
He says about this, “The approach to consider one word as being beachfront digital real estate.” “Afterwards there is nothing which others can have before you but always after.”
Mr Leaman concurs and argues that it was even better if they obtained pantry.ai as opposed to PantryAI.com. He applies AI in his business, allowing manufacturers of consumer goods to obtain relevant information on what quantity to produce for each order.
Andrew Rosener is the chief executive of MediaOptions, an AI-connected domain address broker. According to him, the move is here to stay.
“ai is not a fad as it once was, with all this cash flood and how firms want to give an impression of being ai conscious to providers or clients.”
However, he issues a cautionary note to business entities with respect to purchase of AI domain for the sake that artificial intelligence is in fashion today. According to Mr. Rosner, “I wouldn’t tell my clients to spend outrageous amounts on domains with AI because they want to be a part of what is happening now.” Such a decision would still be sensible only in case your company was AI-centric.
