The .ai ending belongs to Anguilla, a British island in the Caribbean. It originally had nothing to do with artificial intelligence. Today it is the ending of the AI industry.
Below you will find costs and rules, plus numbers from my analysis of 6,220 startup domains.
Key takeaways
- Country: .ai is the country code ending of Anguilla. The island’s government manages it.
- Cost: around €95 to €145 a year at German registrars, about $83 at Porkbun. That is roughly 8 to 12 times the price of a .de domain at STRATO.
- Term: at least two years.
- Google: treats .ai like a generic ending, not like a country code ending.
- Adoption: more than one million registered domains, as of January 2026.
- Startups: in the 2025 Y Combinator batches, every third startup is on .ai.
On this page:
- Which country does .ai belong to?
- What does an .ai domain cost and where do you buy it?
- Does .ai hurt your Google rankings?
- What 6,220 startup domains show
- When .ai is worth it
- Three risks
- How to find the right name
Which country does .ai belong to?
To Anguilla. The British Overseas Territory has the country code AI, just as Germany has DE. According to the IANA entry, the Government of Anguilla is responsible for the ending.
Anguilla has handed the technical operation to the US company Identity Digital. The contract runs for five years and was announced in October 2024.
Anyone can register one. You do not need a residence or a company on Anguilla.
What does an .ai domain cost and where do you buy it?
Considerably more than .de or .com. Three registrars compared, as of 11 October 2026:
| Registrar | Price | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| IONOS | €8 per month | €96 |
| STRATO | €7.80 per month, from month 13 €12 per month | €93.60, then €144 |
| Porkbun | $82.70 per year | $82.70 |
Two things drive the price. Since 5 March 2026, registrars pay the registry $80 per year instead of $70. And .ai is always registered and renewed for at least two years. At Porkbun you therefore pay $165.40 up front. With monthly prices, check the minimum term.
For comparison: at STRATO a .de domain costs €12 per year after the first year, a .com €21.60.
MINIMUM TERM: 2 YEARS applies to purchase and renewal .de STRATO █ €24.com STRATO ██ €43.ai Porkbun ████████ $165.ai IONOS ██████████ €192.ai STRATO ████████████ €238 REGISTRY FEE ALONE 2 × $80 = $160 for 2 years As of 11 Oct 2026, rounded
Does .ai hurt your Google rankings?
No. Google lists .ai in its list of country code endings that are treated like generic endings. It has been on that list since May 2023, next to .io and .co. So your website is not targeted at Anguilla. Which other country code endings count as generic
There is no bonus either. Back in 2015, Google made clear that keywords in the ending neither help nor hurt. An .ai domain does not make you rank better for AI searches.
An .ai domain does not make you rank better for AI searches.
For a national market this means: a country domain such as .de sends a country signal, .ai sends none. According to Google, that is usually a weak signal. If you only look for customers in one country, .ai still gives it up, and you pay more.
What 6,220 startup domains show
For my study on startup domains I analysed every company that has gone through Y Combinator since 2005. 900 of them are on .ai, that is 14.5%.
Base: Y Combinator startups, as of 10 October 2026. Yellow: 2026, not yet complete.
The first .ai domains in the dataset date from 2014, for example wit.ai. From 2022 to 2025 the share rose steeply, from 13 to 32%. For 2026 it stands at 27%.
Five observations:
- Mostly B2B. 655 of the 900 startups on .ai are B2B companies. That is 73%.
- Shorter names. The median is 7 characters, on .com it is 9. 38% of .ai names have 6 characters or fewer, on .com only 18%.
- The ending as part of the name. For 18%, the .ai is part of the company name: Jasper.ai, People.ai, Observe.AI.
- Names ending in AI mostly take .ai. Of 277 companies whose name ends in AI, 69% are on .ai and 28% on .com.
- .ai is still missing at the top. Of Y Combinator’s 90 top companies, only one uses .ai: Caper. Scale AI is on scale.com. Most top companies, however, were founded before .ai was common among startups.
This suggests the ending solves a practical problem: the short name you want is often taken on .com and still free on .ai. Whether these companies later move to .com, only the coming years will show.
When .ai is worth it
| Your situation | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| AI is the core of your product, your market is international | .ai fits. Secure the .com as soon as it is affordable. |
| Your short preferred name is taken on .com | Only if AI fits your offer. Otherwise look for a different name. |
| AI is only one feature of your product | Skip it. The ending ties you to one topic. |
| Local business or service provider in one country | Take your country ending, e.g. .de. |
| You yourself are the brand | Your name on .com or your country ending. |
More on choosing a domain ending is in the Domain Handbook.
From my practice: kywrd.ai
For my tool kywrd.ai I chose .ai because AI clearly makes up a large part of the product. I struggled with the decision and considered going with .io again, as with my other digital projects. Because the processes run agentically, .ai simply fits well. And .ai even adds value to the product, because the ending is extremely popular right now.
The .com would probably have been available too, but it carries nothing. The .ai gives more context. I bought it in January 2026 at Vercel for $140, and kywrd.io for $30 along with it. I would do it exactly the same way again. What still bothers me about the name
My rule of thumb: .ai only if it really is an AI product. Otherwise you can save yourself the ending.
The .com would probably have been available too, but it carries nothing.
Three risks
- The price can keep rising. The increase in March 2026 was a little over 14%. How much further it rises is decided by Anguilla and its operator alone.
- It remains a country code ending. The Government of Anguilla sets the rules. How delicate that can get is shown by .io: since the UK announced it would hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, the future of the ending has been debated. The treaty from May 2025 is still not in force. ICANN stated back in November 2024 that the end of .io is not a foregone conclusion, and that if it came, there would be a five-year transition period that can be extended. For .ai there is no comparable trigger.
- Some people type .com out of habit, or their country ending. If someone else owns that domain, visitors and misaddressed emails end up there.
How to find the right name
Free tool
Domain generator
Describe your project and get a ready-made prompt for ChatGPT or Claude that generates 50 name candidates. The patterns from the study are already built in:
Naming course
From pattern to a name that brings traffic
The rules above are the start. In the course you go step by step from brainstorming to decision, with a 15-criteria checklist and prompts for every phase.
Go to the naming courseWho is writing
I am Bernard Zitzer, SEO and GEO consultant from Berlin. I bring brands to the front in Google and in AI answers, working with at most five retainer clients and one project client at a time.
Client example: domain upgrade
steinecke.info → steinecke.de
+45 %
Top 3 rankings four months after the move, compared with the old domain’s level (Semrush, 2026)
Already have a domain and want to switch to a better one? I guide the move so your rankings come along.
See domain upgradeNext in the handbook: The full dataset behind the numbers above, 6,220 Y Combinator startups and their domains, is in the startup domains study.
Sources
- IANA: Entry for the .ai ending
- Domain Name Wire: .ai price increase and one million .ai domains
- Google Search Central: Country code endings treated as generic
- ICANN: Statement on .io
- Own analysis: Startup domains, 6,220 Y Combinator startups
