Open AI has acquired a new domain name for ChatGPT; not content with just ChatGPT.com, AI Labs is rumored to have spent at least $15 million to secure chat.com.

In his usual cryptic fashion, CEO Sam Altman posted “chat.com” in an X message with no other details or background, which was later confirmed to be ChatGPT's new domain. It joins chatgpt.com and the impressive ai.com as URLs pointing to OpenAI's nearly two-year-old chatbot.

It is not clear why OpenAI invested in this domain, but Altman has previously posted on social media that he was “giving a gift” to ChatGPT on its birthday. This could be part of a gradual move away from the ChatGPT name, as the company is also launching a new model that includes an inferred o1 model that does not use the GPT initials.

Although not clear as to the exact purchase price, HubSpot founder Dharmesh Shah previously owned the domain. He paid $15.5 million for it a year ago and recently wrote to X that he sold it for “more than he paid for it.”

While OpenAI does not require chat.com in its current form, Altman recently began talking about differentiating between the GPT family and the new o1 family of models. He says that these are different tracks and that the GPT letters do not play much of a role in the recent announcement.

GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, reminiscent of when OpenAI was a lab. The first models were all named GPT- followed by a number; GPT did not receive mainstream attention until ChatGPT, based on GPT-3.5, appeared.

ChatGPT was originally launched as a research preview, a way to show off the capabilities of GPT-3.5 rather than as a consumer product, but it took off and now, with the advent of non-GPT models, ChatGPT may simply become chat.com appears to be.

The domain name has an interesting history, starting as a general chat room platform in the late 90s. This was the “Wild West” era for online communication. The domain was owned by Cnet for a while, pointing to download.com.

Chat.com has since gone through several owners, with several attempts to create a “central hub” for online communication. Now it looks to be a way to chat with non-human entities, rather than other people.

When it was first revealed that he was the owner of chat.com, Shah told LinkedIn why he was investing over $15 million in the domain name.

He said: “Chat-based UX is the next big thing in software” and that “communication with computers/software for natural language interfaces is much more intuitive.”

The founder added that the domain is “great because it is simple, short, and ‘right on target’ to meet the moment.” He said that someone would build a very successful product on top of it. This was at a time when ChatGPT was already a year old and successful.

In his X post confirming that OpenAI was the buyer, Shah wrote a 'prompt to infer o1 of ChatGPT' that included some details about the deal. In it, he suggests that he would not sell the domain at a loss, that OpenAI is a perfect home, and that he is close friends with Altman.

Shah added that he “doesn't like to profit from people he considers friends” and recently became an investor in OpenAI. This suggests that the transaction was for a cost sale with the possibility of purchasing shares as part of the process.