OpenAI has acquired one of the oldest URLs on the Internet for ChatGPT

OpenAI has acquired Chat.com — one of the oldest domains on the Internet, which was registered back in September 1996.

Last year, it was revealed that the domain was purchased by Dharmesh Shah, founder and CTO of HubSpot, for $15.5 million, but just a few months later, he announced its resale — for an even larger amount (although he did not disclose the name of the new owner at that time).

“The reason I bought chat.com is simple: I believe that chat-based UX is the next big thing in software. Communicating with computers/programs through a natural language interface is much more intuitive. This has been made possible by generative AI,” Shah wrote on LinkedIn during the announcement of his purchase.

Later, Shah confirmed that the buyer was indeed OpenAI — and it is likely that he received stock rather than cash for the domain.

Meanwhile, Sam Altman published a new address on Twitter without any comments:

Dropping “GPT” from the domain chat.com aligns with OpenAI's recent rebranding efforts. In September, the company announced a new series of “reasoning models,” starting with version “o1” (former Chief Scientist Bob McGrew mentioned that “o1 will be the first step in creating new, more sensible names” that will better reflect the company's work).

Source: The Verge, TechCrunch