.ais
Is .ais a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody has applied for .ais in its own right, as of 7 October 2026. Link Freedom Group named .ais as the backup string of its .hop application.
Nobody has applied for .ais in its own right.
Will names sell?
Rides the AI wave as the plural of .ai plus a tracking-industry niche, but most serious projects would pick .ai itself.
Last round the AI scored the 2012 strings blind to their fate. Strings it scored 60 or more hold a median 27,168 names today; those under 30, a median of 30. .ais’s closest 2012 strings hold .cloud 552K, .app 1.48M and .cars 346.
The nearest 2012 strings, and how many names each holds today
The closest 2012 string, .cloud, held 551,867 names, June 2026. .app held 1,478,674; .cars held 346. Chosen by AI from every string in the 2012 round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: take the plain-language noun for the defining technology wave of the moment and sell it open to every company claiming membership in that wave, which only pays off if the wave is durable and the word stays the identity rather than becoming a dated buzzword.
Same bet: a short generic tech-category noun that a software product puts its primary identity on, monetized as a premium mass-market registry where the string itself certifies what the registrant is.
Same bet mechanically: the plural of the prime category noun sold alongside a more natural singular, so it works only if registrants accept the pluralized form as an equivalent identity rather than a consolation for the string they actually wanted.
ai-agent platforms and multi-agent projects wanting a plural-of-AI namespace, plus maritime/logistics tracking vendors in the AIS (vessel and asset identification) space
What a .ais domain is
.ais is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our AI & tech category. Nobody has applied for .ais in its own right. It is named on ICANN’s list as part of an application for another string.
Is the .ais domain extension real yet?
.ais is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .ais domain?
You can’t yet. A .ais name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .ais was .cloud, delegated on 26 June 2015.
Is .ais a real TLD?
Not yet. .ais is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because ICANN’s list names .ais as part of an application for another string. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- Link Freedom Group · now replacementICANN
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“LFGL2683T-T23581 · Link Freedom Group Ltd · replacement string of .hop”ICANN
“.ais · Infra · “Know what’s where, instantly.””Link Freedom Group
- Band: usable but limited (30-49). The string reads two ways: as the plural of AI, and as AIS, the maritime vessel-tracking acronym that matches the applicant's published 'Infra' category and 'Know what's where, instantly.' tagline. The AI reading gives it a real demand tailwind over the next 5 years, and by analogy with .ai's rise as a category standard, adjacent strings can pick up spillover registrations. But by analogy with lookalike extensions next to a strong incumbent (e.g., .cam beside .com), spillover tends to arrive as defensive or discount volume rather than primary identities: a serious AI project choosing .ais over .ai would need to explain the choice, which is the definition of a weak brand signal here. The AIS-tracking reading is coherent but narrow B2B; adoption volume there is unknown and I reason only by analogy with other industry-acronym TLDs, which have generally stayed thin. It is not in the 50-69 band because there is no evidence of sustained demand or genuine primary-identity use for this string, and the confusable-with-.ai problem actively works against building one. It is not in the 10-29 band because the AI adjacency plus a legitimate infra/tracking meaning should support registration volume beyond vanity or event-driven demand. Main market uncertainty: whether the plural-of-AI framing gets adopted as an agent-identity convention (one domain per agent in a fleet), which would move it toward niche-standard territory, or whether the string is simply perceived as a typo of .ai.