OpenAI May Have Spent Over $15 Million On URL, Drops 'GPT' From Domain

Sam Altman, the chief executive officer of OpenAI, on Nov. 6 shared a URL on his X (formerly Twitter) account. The social media post simply read “chat.com”, which redirects automatically to ChatGPT. Notably, the domain name doesn’t include “GPT”, indicating that OpenAI’s move to rebrand itself is well under way.

Interestingly, there is a back story to chat.com. The domain name was previously owned by Dharmesh Shah, founder and chief technology officer of HubSpot. Shah had reportedly paid $15.5 million for purchasing chat.com at the beginning of 2023.

“The reason I bought chat.com is simple: I think Chat-based UX is the next big thing in software. Communicating with computers/software through a natural language interface is much more intuitive. This is made possible by Generative AI,” Shah had written in a LinkedIn post announcing the purchase.

However, a few months later, he declared that he had sold the domain, but he would not reveal the buyer or the specifics of the transaction. He did acknowledge though that he sold the domain for more money than he had paid for it.

Shah’s Nov. 7 post on X now reads, “I had sold the domain to an undisclosed buyer. I was not at liberty to share who the acquirer was (I was going to leave that to them, when they were ready).”

“Well, in a 8 character tweet (talk about brevity), Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI revealed that they were the buyer. If you visit the website now, it goes to ChatGPT,” Shah’s tweet reads. Shah also left indications that OpenAI paid him in shares.

The simplified domain complements OpenAI's recent rebranding initiatives. The company unveiled its new "o1" model series in September, which is intended to give users a more understandable and straightforward naming scheme. OpenAI’s former Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew had reportedly hinted that this change was just the "first step of newer, more sane names."

The purchase of chat.com by OpenAI is part of a larger pattern where tech firms are acquiring "vanity domains" for easier branding. Friend, an AI startup, recently invested $1.8 million to acquire friend.com this year.