On Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted a simple URL on X: chat.com. It automatically redirects to OpenAI's popular chatbot, ChatGPT.
Previously, the domain was owned by Dharmesh Shah, the founder and CTO of HubSpot. In early 2023, Shah bought the domain chat.com for $10 million. However, just a few months later, he announced that he had sold the domain, but would not reveal details of the sale or the buyer. In particular, he confirmed that he had sold the domain for more than he originally paid for it.
“The reason I bought chat.com is simple: I think chat-based UX (#ChatUX) is the next big thing in the software industry. Communicating with computers/software through a natural language interface is much more intuitive. This is made possible by generative AI,” Shah wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing the purchase — to which chat.com briefly redirected before reselling it. After the sale, Domain Name Wire noted that Shah had mentioned that another buyer had been interested in the purchase and suspected that he had passed it on to them.
While the domain's full ownership history remains unclear, domain sales database NameBio reports that chat.com sold for $15.5 million on March 28, 2023. This timing coincides with Shah's LinkedIn post on May 25, 2023, in which he announced his sale after two months of ownership. OpenAI refused The Verge's Please comment; Shah did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. TechCrunch reported that OpenAI confirmed its acquisition of the domain.
The removal of “GPT” from the chat.com domain is in line with OpenAI’s recent rebranding efforts. In September, the company announced a new series of reasoning models that begin with “o1.” Former Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew said at the time The edge He hoped the O1 series would represent “the first step towards newer, more sensible names” to better communicate the company's work. However, as TechCrunch reported, the company doesn't host ChatGPT on chat.com, so this likely isn't an official name change.
Hoarding of “vanity domains” is a story as old as the Internet itself. Just a few months ago, AI startup Friend spent $1.8 million on the domain freund.com after 2, had raised $5 million in funding. For OpenAI, more than $10 million is a drop in the bucket – the startup just raised $6.6 billion.