This is the sort of story we love. Artificial intelligence – or AI – has made so many headlines this year, it would be impossible to report on them all. But the best story of them all relates to the tiny island of Anguilla in the Caribbean.
You might wonder what the link between them could be, given that the island is home to just 16,000 or so people. But here’s the thing – its country code for domain names is .ai – rather fortuitous for the island itself, as it turns out.
The explosion in artificial intelligence has led to many entrepreneurs with new and established businesses wanting to get hold of a domain ending in .ai. However, since ICANN has allocated this to the tiny island, it’s up to the government in Anguilla to decide who can purchase a .ai domain – and how much they’ll price it for.
There’s no telling where artificial intelligence will take us in the future. For now, though, plenty of people want to get that .ai domain if it is relevant to their business or interests. Major brands like Google and Facebook already have theirs in place.
According to news reports, the popularity of AI in recent months has led to the prospect of Anguilla raking in around $30 million in domain registration fees just this year. It’s impossible to tell whether this will continue or whether sales will calm down a little. However, since the gross domestic product of the island came in at around $288 million two years ago, you can see how sizeable a chunk that $30 million is.
As you might suppose, the price for a .ai domain varies depending on the wording you put before the extension. However, you can expect to pay far more for a name ending in .ai than you would for other extensions. That may not have been the case several years ago, but now the world has been introduced to artificial intelligence – wherever it may lead us – things have changed.
Of course, all countries with their own country extension granted by ICANN will be able to benefit in a similar way. However, since Anguilla is so small, and its domain name extension is so relevant nowadays, it can benefit in a far bigger way than you might expect.
The last year has seen a major increase too. Data shows that over 143,000 .ai domains were registered by mid-July 2022. By the time we reached the middle of June the following year, that number had increased to more than 248,000. And each of those new domains benefitted the Anguilla government.
At present, it seems like everyone is talking about AI. Will this continue? Will it take jobs and make certain processes obsolete? Will we regret the road it might lead us down? Time will tell, but for now at least, the tiny island of Anguilla will be hoping the interest in AI domain names is set to continue.