ICANN Reveal Day: 1,615 new top-level domain applications
OpenAI, Meta, Google and others compete for .agent, .agi and .asi
Confirmed
The takeaway
On Oct 7, 2026 ICANN published the applications in the first new generic top-level domain round since 2012: 1,615 applications from 481 applicants.
Status
- Claim
Confirmed
- Our reporting
- High confidence
- Importance
- 2 of 5
- Last verified
- 9 October 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 Astra160 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.599 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 3.8 Flash190 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7129 days after its cutoff
None of these four assistants can know about it. The closest, Claude Opus 5.5, stops 99 days before it.
Key facts
- Reveal Day: Oct 7, 2026, 18:00 UTC, on ICANN’s 2026 Round Application Publication and Statistics site (ICANN, Sept 29 announcement); window for applications ran Apr 30 – Aug 12, 2026
- Totals: 1,615 applications from 481 applicants (CircleID, Crypto Briefing; ICANN had said on Sept 22 that 1,616 of 1,663 submitted applications would proceed); 333 brand and 16 community applications (Crypto Briefing); fee $227,000 per string (Crypto Briefing)
- OpenAI (OPENAI OPCO, LLC): 15 primary applications incl. .openai, .chatgpt, .codex, .gpt, .agent, .agi, .asi, .mcp, .model, .voice, .daybreak, .deploy, .evals, .oai, .skill (CircleID, Crypto Briefing)
- Meta (Meta Registry Holdings LLC): 18 primary applications incl. .facebook, .instagram, .whatsapp, .threads, .messenger, .meta, .llama, .metaai, .aiglasses, .metaglasses, .wearables, .superintelligence
- Google (Charleston Road Registry): 39 applications incl. .gemini, .deepmind, .chromium, .pixel, .waymo, .agent, .api, .intelligence, .mcp (CircleID)
- Anthropic, PBC: two applications, .anthropic and .claude (CircleID, Crypto Briefing)
- Contention: .agent had 10 applicants per The Verge / Crypto Briefing and 13 per CircleID’s count; .agi 7; .asi 6 (Verge) or 5 (CircleID). Counts differ by source, probably because of replacement/alternate strings
- Next steps: replacement-string election Oct 8–21, 2026; String Confirmation Day Nov 17, 2026, which also opens the community input and objections period; then evaluation, contention resolution (often auctions), contracting and delegation
What happened
ICANN opened its first new gTLD round since 2012 in April 2026 and published who applied for what on Reveal Day, Oct 7. Frontier AI labs applied both defensively for their brand names and offensively for generic AI words. The generic strings .agent, .agi and .asi each have several applicants, OpenAI among them, so they will have to be resolved between applicants (by agreement or auction) before any registry runs them.
Why it matters
Top-level domains are scarce and last for decades. The applications show the labs expect “agents” and “AGI/ASI” to be lasting consumer categories, and Meta’s .superintelligence application matches its lab name. Nothing is delegated yet; contention resolution will take months.
Sources
5 sources from 4 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
5 sources: 2 primary, 3 press
Primary
- ICANN: ICANN announces date for Reveal Day and other 2026 round milestones (Sept 29)icann.org, official
- ICANN: ICANN confirms number of applications proceeding in the 2026 round (Sept 22)icann.org, official
Press
- The Verge: ICANN domains 2026: .agent, .agi, .asitheverge.com, press
- CircleID: OpenAI, Meta and registry operators seek new gTLDs as .agent draws 13 applicationscircleid.com, press
- Crypto Briefing: ICANN reveals 1,615 new domain applications, and AI suffixes like .agent and .agi are crowdedcryptobriefing.com, press
Changes
- Filed