The reason behind this switch remains unclear, with speculation ranging from a change in OpenAI's plans, a tentative sale or lease, or a bidding war. The article suggests that this could be a case of wealthy individuals squabbling over a valuable asset. It also notes that OpenAI never confirmed the purchase of the domain, and Musk has not commented on the matter.
Key takeaways:
- The domain AI.com, which was previously redirecting to OpenAI's site, is now redirecting to X.ai, a machine learning research organization backed by Elon Musk.
- Two-letter .com domains are rare, highly expensive, and often form words or familiar abbreviations. The domain AI.com was speculated to have been sold for a price higher than IT.com's $3.8 million.
- OpenAI's intentions behind the purchase of AI.com could have been to convert confused URL bar typers into lifetime users or to move its consumer-facing operations to the shorter domain.
- X.ai, despite its ambitious goal to understand the true nature of the universe, has not made any visible progress since its site went up in July.