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WEST PALM BEACH, FL – For more than two decades, DNJournal’s weekly Top 20 domain sales chart has served as a conservative barometer of the aftermarket’s highest end. The list is built on verified, reported transactions and has historically been dominated, often overwhelmingly, by .com domain names.
That pattern has now been disrupted.
A review of recent DNJournal Top 20 sales reveals an unexpected shift: .ai domain names now make up the majority of the list, eclipsing .com in a space it once controlled almost exclusively.
A Stark Change From Just Three Years Ago
In early 2023, DNJournal’s Top 20 shows a market that was still firmly .com-led, but no longer monolithic.
Throughout 2023, most weekly Top 20 lists were dominated by .com domains, often accounting for a clear majority of reported sales. Alongside those .com transactions, a variety of non-.com extensions appeared – including .org, .co, .xyz, and several country-code domains. These alternatives surfaced intermittently and without a unifying theme, reflecting individual high-value sales rather than a coordinated market shift.
During much of the year, .ai domains were either absent or rare in DNJournal’s Top 20 reports. When they did begin to appear later in 2023, they stood out precisely because they were unusual. Their presence suggested early adoption and experimentation, not dominance.
The most recent DNJournal Top 20 charts tell a very different story.
Instead of appearing occasionally, .ai domains now occupy the majority of the list. In the latest Top 20 snapshot, nearly two-thirds of the highest reported sales use the .ai extension, while .com accounts for fewer than one-third. Several of these .ai transactions reached six figures, and the pricing shows consistency rather than volatility.
Unlike the scattered non-.com appearances seen in 2023, today’s .ai sales form a clear pattern. The domains are short, product-oriented, and directly tied to artificial intelligence use cases. The pricing clusters suggest repeated buyer behavior.
Why the Shift Accelerated
Several factors appear to be driving this change.
First, AI-native companies are making intentional branding choices. These firms are often less concerned with legacy conventions and more focused on immediate relevance. A strong .ai domain can communicate product purpose instantly, without requiring explanation or brand education.
Second, .com scarcity has become more acute at the exact moment startup velocity increased. Many premium .com domains remain tightly held or priced for enterprise acquisitions. While AI startups are clearly willing to spend significant sums on domains, they appear increasingly selective about what that investment delivers.
Finally, “AI” has solidified as a commercial category, not a trend label. In that context, .ai functions less like an alternative extension and more like an industry identifier.
This Is Not a Rejection of .com
Despite the rise of .ai, the data does not suggest that .com has lost its position at the very top of the market. In the most recent DNJournal Top 20, the highest-priced sales are still .com domains, reinforcing the extension’s continued dominance in enterprise-grade transactions and global branding. For many businesses, .com remains the preferred choice for long-term defensive positioning.
What has changed is that .com is no longer the only extension capable of commanding six-figure sales consistently within a specific category.
A Category-Driven Domain Market
The contrast between 2023 and today suggests the domain market may be entering a more category-driven phase, where certain industries elevate specific extensions to first-class status.
In 2023, .ai was emerging but peripheral.
Today, it is central – at least within the artificial intelligence sector.
If this pattern continues, future DNJournal Top 20 charts may reflect not the decline of .com, but a market where relevance and industry alignment increasingly share the stage with tradition. The question is no longer whether .ai belongs in the conversation, that question appears to have been answered.
The more interesting question is whether other industries could pull off the same miracle.
Could another sector generate the same combination of urgency, clarity, and scale needed to elevate a single extension to parity with .com? Or is artificial intelligence a once-in-a-generation exception; a category uniquely suited to redefine how domains are valued at the top of the market?
If history is any guide, replicating this trajectory will be difficult. But if it happens again, DNJournal’s Top 20 charts are likely where the signal will appear first.
About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive Officer of SEARCHEN NETWORKS®. He specializes in Website Monetization, is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, authored a how-to book called ”Mastering Your Website‘, and is a key player in several online businesses.
Another great, and timely, piece, John.
While most agree that dot-com will remain king, dot-ai domains are undoubtedly very undervalued at this stage.
The agentic commerce, agentic payments, and agentic analytics spaces are three monumental themes going forward.
“Could another sector generate the same combination of urgency, clarity, and scale needed to elevate a single extension to parity with .com?” Maybe, but not with the impact of AI.
But a different question is whether dot-ai domains will be adopted by industries that heavily leverage artificial intelligence (e.g., pharma, manufacturing, entertainment), but aren’t actually core to that segment. That seems like a definitive “yes.”