news OpenAI DevDay Announcements – What Does the GPT Store Mean for Domain Names?

A year ago OpenAI publicly released ChatGPT. Within weeks nearly everyone was trying it out and talking about it. Now worldwide there are over 100 million active users.

AI is having a significant impact on the domain world. This year .ai one of the hottest extensions. Names geared to artificial intelligence applications are also selling in .com and .io and some other extensions.

This week the first OpenAI Developer Conference, dubbed DevDay, was held in San Francisco. In the next section I cover several of the main announcements from that event, while later in the article I consider what that might mean for domain investing.

I also look at sales data for AI related domain names during 2023.

OpenAI Developer Conference

Here are a few of the key announcements:

• A new version, GPT-4 Turbo, was released. It has two versions, one text-only and another that can interpret images plus text. GPT-4 Turbo is considerably faster and more capable than GPT 3.5 and GPT 4.
• Prompts can now be much more detailed, with the context window limit now 128 thousand tokens. That is roughly equivalent to the contents of a 300 page book.
• Prices Reduced Even though GPT-4 Turbo is more capable, pricing was reduced by about a factor of 3 compared to earlier versions.
• More Up To Date Large language models like GPT are pre-trained on an immense collection of materials. When GPT 3 was released it did not know about any developments from the preceding couple of years. That has been shrunk substantially, with GPT-4 Turbo having knowledge up to April 2023.
• User Developed GPTs Probably the most important announcement was the ability to develop GPTs tailored to specific uses. These can either be for private use, or links provided for public access. OpenAI also has an enterprise program geared to internal use by a single large company. These GPTs don’t need code for development, and can be developed simply through conversational prompts. They can use specific documents linked by the developer.
• Impressive Realistic Voices The keynote demonstrated a couple of the new hyper-realistic voices used in TTS (text-to-speech). There are 6 voices to choose from currently, and they are all available for user developed GPTs.
• DALL-E 3 Images This technology allows you to generate images from text prompts. I have seen some very impressive images based on simple prompts. The cost per generated image is about $0.04.
• GPT Store Opening later this month, there will be a GPT Store for those who want to share GPTs they have created. There will be revenue sharing with developers, but as far as I know the details were not yet released. Initially it will be restricted to a small group of verified builders.
• Whisper Speech Recognition A new version of Whisper was released. This open-source speech recognition was used in one of the applications demonstrated during the keynote.
• API for Assistants A new Assistants API with impressive capabilities was launched. These agent assistants can generate code on the fly, access outside knowledge, etc. They demonstrated during the keynote a travel planning example for a trip to Paris.
• Copyright Shield There is concern about copyright and generative AI products, mainly related to the materials used during the training. Open AI announced Copyright Shield. I did not delve into it in detail, but essentially they will help defend any lawsuits that arise from a developer application based on use of OpenAI tools. TechCrunch has background on Copyright Shield here.

You can watch the OpenAI Developer keynote by Sam Altman that I used as the basis for this article.

There are also numerous summaries of the key announcements. I found the following ones helpful:

• Everything Announced at OpenAI’s First Developer Event from Ivan Mehta at TechCrunch.
• OpenAI home page. For example, this on DALL-E 3.
• Also from OpenAI, their community section has a section on OpenAI DevDay Summarized.
• Medium have a readable article What's New From OpenA Dev Day Event

Earlier this year the NamePros Blog covered GPT and Similar Artificial Intelligence Technologies: Implications for the Domain Name Industry.

I also wrote about Artifical Intelligence Resources Available Today, looking at ways that AI was already implemented within the domain world.

Some AI Domain Sales Data

Domain names related to artificial intelligence have been the hottest commodity over the past year, and there seems no sign of that changing anytime soon. The NamePros Blog looked at The AI Domain Extension: Sales, Pricing, Use a number of months ago, but I thought an update was warranted.

At time of writing, NameBio indicates 2365 sales so far in 2023 in the .ai extension totalling $4.8 million. Keep in mind that a minority of retail sales are reported in NameBio, and that the above figure includes both wholesale and retail sales, but not sales below $100. There are larger sales that have been reported, including a $1.5 million sale mentioned in a BBC article currently being discussed in our community, but all figures here include only sales authenticated and reported in NameBio.

For comparison, the total dollar volume of .ai sales so far in 2023 ($4.8 million) is more than the combined sales in .io ($1.9 million), .co ($986 thousand), .tv ($323 thousand), .me ($244 thousand) and .us ($296 thousand) over the same time period. It is also more than all new extensions combined ($3.5 million), and more than .net ($2.5 million). The .ai dollar volume is still much less than .com, so far in 2023 is at $87.8 million.

At time of writing, the largest reported .ai sales from the past year are you.ai at $700,000, stack.ai at $258,888, NPC.ai for $250,000, service.ai at $127,500, and agents.ai at $125,000.

This information will rapidly be out of date, but this link will give you the updated list of 2023 .ai extension sales, in order of price. You will need a membership to access the long list.

Of course, a number of AI businesses are opting for another extension, such as .com, .io or a few others. While the majority of companies will not brand on a name that specifically includes AI, I did use the prefix and suffix commands at NameBio to see how many sales were recorded in 2023. There were 131 sales in the .com extension with AI as a prefix, totalling just over $600,000. The largest, though, AIQ.com may simply be a valuable 3L .com. The next few, AIgenerator.com at $81,675, AIwriter.com at $67,500, and AIjobs.com for $31,032, are clearly artificial intelligence related. This link will give you an updated list of AI-prefix .com sales.

There were a higher number of sales with .ai as a suffix, although the total dollar volume was less. Keep in mind, however, the impact of the large 3L sale in the prefix list. There were 182 .com sales with. AI as a suffix on NameBio so far in 2023, totalling about $308,000. The highest-value sales on this list were TravelAI.com at just under $50,000 and PhotoAI.com for $40,000.

What are the Implications for Domain Names?

I am by no means an expert in this field, or in AI-related domain names, but here are some thoughts I had after considering the recent announcements.

The integration of realistic voice output, impressive image generation, and readily personalized GPT apps or API-enabled assistants that can access linked documents and data all have obvious uses by domain marketplaces. The era of a truly personalized end user experience in finding that perfect domain name is upon us.

Intelligent agents will increasingly categorize, describe and present domain names for us, and select names to be presented to prospective purchasers. This is already happening at SquadHelp.

Our work as domain investors will change. The SquadHelp AI Domain Grader, for example, and Domain Insights Tool, help rate prospective names, looking at how similar names have sold, how much competition there is for the keywords, and many other factors. SquadHelp also provide end use cases that expand domain investor idea about the name. Now that they are linked to several domain auction sites, the tools make the process even easier. SquadHelp now return your coin if a name highly rated by their grader does not get accepted by the human panel, which does happen regularly. But it is easy for all investors to use these tools, so competition for highly-rated names will drive acquisition prices higher.

SquadHelp Domain Grader has a wide focus on names suitable as brands. It would seem possible for a domain investor with specialized interests in a certain niche to create an AI assistant that performs well in that narrow focus.

What do the announcements from OpenAI DevDay mean for the demand for domain names? The startup environment this year has been focused on AI applications. I don’t see that changing. The work of many will change, and many sectors will be disrupted. Up to this point, developers have used AI tools to craft products, generally acquiring domain names to host those services. Will a GPT app store lessen the demand for domain names?

We can probably learn from the experience with apps for smart phones. One 2023 estimate suggests that mobile apps generate $935 billion in revenue in 2023. The same article indicates that Apple’s App Store has about 2 million apps available, while Google Play Store has almost 2.9 million. There are other app stores, such as Shopify, which has almost 33,000 stores and more than 8500 apps according to this source.

A couple of aspects demonstrated during the keynote might suggest that many GPTs will not use a separate domain name, but exist only within the GPT store. Several support functions, including instructions for use, are built right within the GPT structure. Also, GPT launches with name suggestion tool built in. I am not sure, but presume that is name suggestion based on what has not been already used for a GPT, and not. in terms of standard domain names.

Time scales will shrink. Already with no-code and low-code the development time for apps and applications is much tighter, but now with these changes in OpenAI products, a GPT app can be developed in a day, or even hours. The developer will want to quickly secure and make active an appropriate service domain name to support their GPT. This may benefit those who list names at registrar marketplaces where transfer can be automatic and instant after payment confirmation. At the very least, marketplaces with quick turnaround will be preferred.

But there is another aspect of the shorter development window. Now with the forthcoming GPT Store it will be possible to generate and offer apps without coding, and in a much shorter time frame. This means that GPTs can be profitable even with a smaller number of users. Does this mean that the need for domain names might decrease, or will it increase even more?

While we have seen sales of names that literally incorporate terms from AI technology, and AI itself, ultimately most businesses will want a distinctive name. Those who understand AI services well, and also have a strong background in what makes a good brand name in general, will be well positioned.

Increasingly the service provided by the AI developer is based on the quality of the prompt or context. While we have seen sales of names literally involve the term prompt, metaphors that suggest the idea of context or prompt may be desired in brands for the AI sector. Well before AI, context was already a highly-sought term, registered in 265 TLDs and used in more than 10,000 longer registered names, according to dotDB.

Turbo has been a popular branding term for decades, and is registered in 379 TLDs, and in more than 48,000 longer names, according to dotDB. I wonder if adoption by OpenAI in the name GPT-4 Turbo will reinvigorate the use of turbo in situations that have nothing to do with AI?

So what do you think? Has the rapid pace of development of artificial intelligence, and generative AI in particular, made you more optimistic or pessimistic about the prospects for domain investing?

Do you think that 2024 will be even hotter in terms of sales of .ai extension domain names?

Has AI yet changed how you function as a domain name investor? Do you anticipate that will further change with these announcements?

I highly recommend you watch Sam Altman’s OpenAI Developer keynote to hear directly about the developments summarized in this article.

Updates:
Nov. 9, 2023 : I added the paragraph that starts "A couple of aspects demonstrated during the keynote might suggest that many GPTs will not use a separate domain name..."


Thanks for NameBio for the sales information presented in this article, and to DotDB for information on registered extensions. I also acknowledge information in the articles linked, especially the TechCrunch summary of the key announcements.