TechWebIt appears .agent and .agi are about to be the hot new domainsICANN\u2019s latest top-level domain applications are out, and they are all about AI.ICANN\u2019s latest top-level domain applications are out, and they are all about AI.by David PierceOct 7, 2026, 6:46 PM UTCShareGiftWhat\u2019s in a URL anymore, really.David Pierce is editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired.For the first time in years, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers \u2014 better known as ICANN \u2014 is accepting applications for new top-level domains. These are the suffixes at the end of all URLs, and you may know them as things like .com, .org, and .pizza.ICANN just announced the 1,615 applications that have been submitted so far, from 481 different applicants. The trend will not surprise you: AI is everywhere.<\/p>\n
Ten different companies, including both Meta and OpenAI, applied for the .agent domain. Seven, including OpenAI, applied for .agi. Six, including OpenAI, applied for .asi, clearly attempting to get in on President Trump\u2019s demand to switch from \u201cartificial intelligence\u201d to \u201csuper intelligence.\u201d Four companies applied for .intelligence, and Meta is one of two interested in the preposterously long .superintelligence. (OpenAI applied for a total of 15 TLDs; Meta wants a whopping 21.)There are, broadly, two types of domains in these applications. One is more generic, the kind of thing lots of people or companies might use.<\/p>\n
There are hundreds of those in this current batch, from .geek to .haha to .anime to .jackpot. There\u2019s also my personal favorite new one, .itiswhatitis.The other is purely branded, giving a company its own TLD to use for its own purposes. There are 345 brand applications in this batch, including everything from .applebees and .bankofamerica to .zillow and .zoom. Meta applied for .facebook, .instagram, .messenger, .meta, .frommeta, and .threads, which it could use for many purposes; Bluesky applied for .bsky with the apparent intention of weaving the domain into its usernames; OpenAI applied for .chatgpt, .codex, .openai, .gpt, and others; Anthropic wants .anthropic and .claude.<\/p>\n
These strings could ultimately make for memorable product pages, social media usernames, and much more besides.It has mostly been a tough road for these alternate TLDs over the last few years. Some, like .ai or .app, have become somewhat popular thanks to various tech trends, but most people just never got used to the idea of typing .restaurant or .babysitting, and .com and a few others have actually become more important than ever. It\u2019s interesting to see so many brands go for their own domain, which only Google and a few others have accomplished before.This is but one step in the process of creating a new top-level domain, and nothing will be made official before sometime next year. But it appears that even as the world becomes more filled with and mediated by AI, great domain names continue to matter.<\/p>\n
Even the AI companies think so.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.David PierceTechWebMost PopularXbox has secured GTA 6 streaming rightsHBO Max and Paramount Plus will merge into a single streamer under SkydanceApple and LG team up on new smart home gear, starting with a lock, doorbell, and thermostatOpenAI drops another batch of mathematical breakthroughsOur first five impressions of Googlebooks \u2014 exciting but underbakedAdvertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TechWebIt appears .agent and .agi are about to be the hot new domainsICANN\u2019s latest top-level domain applications are out, and they are all about AI.ICANN\u2019s latest top-level domain applications are out, and they are all\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.tcjhomeaccents.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}