There are now more than 1 million .ai websites, and it’s quietly become one of the most profitable side effects of the entire AI revolution.
Anguilla, a tiny British Overseas Territory with ~15,000 people, lucked into owning the “.ai” top-level domain after ICANN assigned it back in the 1990s. Once ChatGPT launched and the AI gold rush began, that domain became digital beachfront property.
A tiny island, a massive cash machine
In 2023 alone, Anguilla generated ~87M East Caribbean dollars (~$32M) from domain name sales, which made up 22% of total government revenue that year, with 354,000 .ai domains registered.
Fast forward to January 2026, and the count has exploded.
As of January 2, 2026, .ai domain registrations surpassed 1 million, according to Domain Name Stat, implying that government revenue from domain registrations surged alongside it.
Anguilla’s government basically confirmed the money is pouring in
In the government’s 2026 budget address, Premier Cora Richardson Hodge said:
Revenue from domain name registration continues to exceed expectations.
That expectation smash is showing up in the numbers. The budget forecast receipts from the broader “goods and services” category hitting EC$260.5M (~$96.4M) for the latest year, largely driven by .ai domain revenue.
In 2023, domain registrations were about 73% of that category. If that ratio stayed similar, Anguilla likely earned $70M+from .ai domains last year.
Why the revenue stream is so durable
Anguilla’s baseline model is simple: it typically charges $140 for a two-year registration, and about 90% of domains renew after two years, which creates sticky, compounding revenue.
But the real fireworks come from the auctions.
Expired .ai domains get sold through registrars like Namecheap, and some of them go for insane prices. Example: you.ai sold for $700,000 last September.
Even just in the past week, 31 expired .ai domains sold for ~$1.2M, per NameBio.
Bottom line
AI is minting winners in all the obvious places: chips, data centers, software, models.
But one of the cleanest “AI toll booth” trades on Earth ended up being… a Caribbean island that owns two letters.