.machine
Is .machine a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.machine is not contested. One applicant has said publicly that it applied to run it, and nobody else has, as of 15 August 2026. It is Link Freedom Group.
A playful word ending for AI and robotics projects; fine for side projects and lab pages, but serious teams will mostly reach for .ai instead.
AI, robotics, automation, and industrial-IoT builders who want a literal, machine-flavored identity; secondarily hobbyists and maker brands using it as a suffix hack (e.g. a product name that reads naturally before .machine).
In LFG's published list of 300+ strings submitted before the ICANN window closed on 2026-08-12. Their catalog tagline: “Make life simpler, work smarter.”
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: an unowned generic industrial-goods noun sold to machine shops, dealers and manufacturers as their primary identity, which only works if a fragmented trade sector adopts a category word nobody can claim exclusively.
Same bet in structure — a plain implement noun with a physical-trade meaning and a software/abstract meaning, so it must win either an industrial buyer or a tech buyer without being naturally owned by either.
Same manufacturing-sector buyer and same reliance on the industrial trade choosing a generic descriptor for its identity, though it reads as a company-name suffix rather than the object-category noun that .machine is.
What a .machine domain is
.machine is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under AI & tech. One applicant has said publicly that it applied for .machine.
Is the .machine domain extension real yet?
.machine is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. It is a string applicants have put forward in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, the process that decides whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .machine domain?
You can’t yet. ICANN publishes every applied-for string on Reveal Day, 7 October 2026 at 18:00 UTC. A .machine name can only be registered after that, once the string is delegated and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .machine was .equipment, delegated on .
Is .machine a real TLD?
Not yet. .machine is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant said publicly that it applied for .machine in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round. Every claim on this page links to its source.
- Link Freedom Group · first recordedLink Freedom Group
“.machine · AI & Tech · “Make life simpler, work smarter.””Link Freedom Group
“LFG voluntarily published its full list of submissions ahead of ICANN’s official Reveal Day.”PR Newswire (Link Freedom Group)
“Top level domain registry Link Freedom Group (LFG) has disclosed more than 300 strings submitted as part of the ICANN new top level domain name program.”Domain Name Wire (Andrew Allemann)
- Band: usable but limited (30-49), at its low end. The string is a common English word with a clear AI/automation resonance, and the current wave of interest in AI agents and machine-to-machine services gives it a plausible buyer story over the next 5 years. But by analogy (flagged as analogy) to descriptive tech generics like .computer, .systems, and .network, such strings have tended to see modest registration volumes, little primary-identity use by serious companies, and thin aftermarkets; there is no verified demand data for .machine itself, so specifics are unknown. It sits above the vanity band (10-29) because the word maps directly onto a large, well-funded category and a robotics or ML-infra startup could credibly adopt name.machine as a real identity, not just a gag. It stays below the strong-niche band (50-69) because within its own category the incumbent default is elsewhere: the analogy suggests .ai has absorbed most of the credibility premium for machine-intelligence branding, leaving .machine as an explained, second-choice address rather than one with sustained demand. The applicant, Link Freedom Group, filed more than 300 strings in the ICANN 2026 round and lists this one under 'AI & Tech'; a large-portfolio applicant is a neutral fact here and mainly signals a breadth strategy rather than a single-string marketing push, which tempers adoption expectations. Main market uncertainty: whether the machine-agent economy produces a naming convention where 'machine' (the literal noun) beats 'ai' (the field) as the identity suffix buyers actually want.