When we look at early-stage startups there is quite a bit of variety in domain extension choices and type of name – see for example the NamePros Blog article Startup Names Through a Y-Combinator Filter.
It would be expected that if one focuses on established tech companies, more will have moved to a quality name on one of the best extensions. In this article I look at the naming choices of 60 AI companies that have been recognized as growing rapidly.
The artificial intelligence revolution will continue for the foreseeable future – we are still in the very early stages of artificial intelligence. Statista estimates the global AI market in 2024 at just over $180 billion (some other estimates place it at almost double that), with projected growth to well over $800 billion by 2030.
The Company List
Josh Howarth recently published an article on Exploding Topics: 60 Growing AI Companies. I used the 60 companies named in that article as the basis for my analysis.
In a few cases the name I use is slightly different from that given in the Howarth article, for example dropping AI suffix for some. I visited each of the company websites, and used the name as shown on the homepage. I created the table below listing the company names alphabetically, providing a quick overview of the sort of names used by the companies.
If you want to know more about what each company does, I urge you to start at the Howarth article. It gives a summary of each company, as well as a link.
The year of formation for the 60 companies in this sample ranged from 2008 to 2023, with the median age about 8 years.
The companies had widely varying rates of growth, but typically 500% or more over a 5 year period.
Some of the companies were still in seed funding stage, while others had reached Series F funding or beyond. Four of the companies went the bootstrapped route of funding expansion from company income. For those that raised funding, funding totals ranged from 2.2 million to 11.3 billion US dollars, with a mean of just over $500 million funding.
There is some geographical bias. While there were companies from Canada, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, 47 of the 60 companies were based in the US. Although China is one of the major countries for AI, there were no Chinese companies in the list.
The Extensions
Of the 60 companies, 43 are operating on a .com, and another 12 on an .ai domain extension. The only other TLDs were .io, .co, .app and .ht, all with a single entry except for .io with 2. There was not a single .org, .xyz, or .net in the list.
Most Have Exact Match
All but 2 of the companies are using a domain name that exactly matches the company name.
There were a number of very high-value names in the set, such as
Type of Company Name
I went through the company names and categorized by type. This was less clearcut than I expected. As well as genuine two-word names, such as DataRoom or LogicMonitor, I categorized as two word names like DeepL and MindsDB that are a combination of two terms, but not strictly two words. In some cases the company includes the extension as part of their company name, for example Shield AI and PlayHT, so I counted these as two-word names.
Any term that was found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary I considered one-word. If the term was not in the dictionary, and was not two dictionary words or word+acronym, then I put it in the created category.
With the definitions above, 62% of names were two-word, 20% single word, and the remainder created ‘words’. There were no three-word or longer names in the .com group, and within the .ai extension names all were single word.
The Name Style
In terms of style of name, while some were suggestive of their application, e.g. PhotoRoom or Briefly Ai, and many had a tech tone such as Anthropic, Edge Impulse, or Roboflow, other names could have been any type of company based on the name alone, such as HitPaw or TabNine.
AI Prefix or Suffix?
While 10 of the company names end in AI, only 3 of these correspond to .com domain names ending in AI.
None of the company names, or domain names, start with AI.
Numerics or Alphanumerics
There were no numerical or alphanumeric domain names in the set of 60 companies.
One company did use a hyphen, AlphaSense uses
Mainly Short
The company names varied from 3 to 17 letters, with a mean of 7.9 letters. Only 6 of the company names were longer than 10 letters, and only one name was longer than 12 letters.
Contrast With Early Startup Names
These 60 companies, with a longer track record and established growth, tend to have higher quality names, and a stronger .com concentration, compared to the names of early startups. For example, the graph below (from this NamePros post) shows what I found for extension choice among 217 summer 2023 Y Combinator startups.
Summary
This is only a sample of 60 company names and their corresponding domain name choice, so results are tentative, but the following might be indicated if investing in names for higher profile AI companies:
There have been many sales since the writing of the following NamePros Blog article in early 2023, but it provides additional information on the type of .ai extension domain names that sell: The .AI Domain Extension.
It would be expected that if one focuses on established tech companies, more will have moved to a quality name on one of the best extensions. In this article I look at the naming choices of 60 AI companies that have been recognized as growing rapidly.
The artificial intelligence revolution will continue for the foreseeable future – we are still in the very early stages of artificial intelligence. Statista estimates the global AI market in 2024 at just over $180 billion (some other estimates place it at almost double that), with projected growth to well over $800 billion by 2030.
The Company List
Josh Howarth recently published an article on Exploding Topics: 60 Growing AI Companies. I used the 60 companies named in that article as the basis for my analysis.
In a few cases the name I use is slightly different from that given in the Howarth article, for example dropping AI suffix for some. I visited each of the company websites, and used the name as shown on the homepage. I created the table below listing the company names alphabetically, providing a quick overview of the sort of names used by the companies.
The 60 companies used in this analysis, arranged alphabetically. The selection of companies is based on growth rate and follows that given in 60 Growing AI Companies.
If you want to know more about what each company does, I urge you to start at the Howarth article. It gives a summary of each company, as well as a link.
The year of formation for the 60 companies in this sample ranged from 2008 to 2023, with the median age about 8 years.
The companies had widely varying rates of growth, but typically 500% or more over a 5 year period.
Some of the companies were still in seed funding stage, while others had reached Series F funding or beyond. Four of the companies went the bootstrapped route of funding expansion from company income. For those that raised funding, funding totals ranged from 2.2 million to 11.3 billion US dollars, with a mean of just over $500 million funding.
There is some geographical bias. While there were companies from Canada, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, 47 of the 60 companies were based in the US. Although China is one of the major countries for AI, there were no Chinese companies in the list.
The Extensions
Of the 60 companies, 43 are operating on a .com, and another 12 on an .ai domain extension. The only other TLDs were .io, .co, .app and .ht, all with a single entry except for .io with 2. There was not a single .org, .xyz, or .net in the list.
Most Have Exact Match
All but 2 of the companies are using a domain name that exactly matches the company name.
There were a number of very high-value names in the set, such as
interactions and scale in .com, or .ai extension names such as frame, shield, observe, or read.Type of Company Name
I went through the company names and categorized by type. This was less clearcut than I expected. As well as genuine two-word names, such as DataRoom or LogicMonitor, I categorized as two word names like DeepL and MindsDB that are a combination of two terms, but not strictly two words. In some cases the company includes the extension as part of their company name, for example Shield AI and PlayHT, so I counted these as two-word names.
Any term that was found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary I considered one-word. If the term was not in the dictionary, and was not two dictionary words or word+acronym, then I put it in the created category.
With the definitions above, 62% of names were two-word, 20% single word, and the remainder created ‘words’. There were no three-word or longer names in the .com group, and within the .ai extension names all were single word.
The Name Style
In terms of style of name, while some were suggestive of their application, e.g. PhotoRoom or Briefly Ai, and many had a tech tone such as Anthropic, Edge Impulse, or Roboflow, other names could have been any type of company based on the name alone, such as HitPaw or TabNine.
AI Prefix or Suffix?
While 10 of the company names end in AI, only 3 of these correspond to .com domain names ending in AI.
None of the company names, or domain names, start with AI.
Numerics or Alphanumerics
There were no numerical or alphanumeric domain names in the set of 60 companies.
One company did use a hyphen, AlphaSense uses
alpha-sense.com.Mainly Short
The company names varied from 3 to 17 letters, with a mean of 7.9 letters. Only 6 of the company names were longer than 10 letters, and only one name was longer than 12 letters.
Contrast With Early Startup Names
These 60 companies, with a longer track record and established growth, tend to have higher quality names, and a stronger .com concentration, compared to the names of early startups. For example, the graph below (from this NamePros post) shows what I found for extension choice among 217 summer 2023 Y Combinator startups.
For comparison, an analysis of domain name choices by very early startups – 217 companies in the Y Combinator Summer 2023 group. Some of these smaller, earlier companies used a variety of extensions, although .com and .ai dominated this group too.
Summary
This is only a sample of 60 company names and their corresponding domain name choice, so results are tentative, but the following might be indicated if investing in names for higher profile AI companies:
- Stick to .com or .ai, or possibly .io.
- With .ai, mainly consider single words that make appropriate brands.
- In .com names, no more than 2 words, and less than 12 letters.
- Names that end in AI are preferred over starting with AI, but not many of these company names used even the suffix form.
There have been many sales since the writing of the following NamePros Blog article in early 2023, but it provides additional information on the type of .ai extension domain names that sell: The .AI Domain Extension.
