On Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted a easy URL on X:chat.com. It robotically redirects to OpenAI's standard chatbot, ChatGPT.
Earlier than that, the area was owned by Dharmesh Shah, the founder and CTO of HubSpot. In early 2023, Shah bought the chat.com area for $10 million. Nonetheless, only a few months later, he introduced that he had bought the area, though he wouldn’t disclose the small print of the sale or the client. Specifically, he confirmed that he bought the area for greater than he had initially paid for it.
“The explanation we purchased chat.com is straightforward: I consider chat-based UX (#ChatUX) is the subsequent massive factor in software program. Speaking with computer systems/software program by way of a pure language interface is far more intuitive. That is made attainable by generative AI,” Shah wrote in a LinkedIn publish asserting the acquisition — which chat.com briefly redirected to earlier than reselling it. After the sale, Area Title Firm famous that Shah had talked about that one other purchaser was within the buy and speculated that he had despatched it to them.
Whereas the area's full historical past of possession stays unclear, area gross sales database NameBio experiences that chat.com bought for $15.5 million on March 28, 2023. This timing aligns with Shah's LinkedIn publish on 25 Might 2023, which publicizes its sale after two months of possession. OpenAI refused The Verge's request for remark; Shah didn’t reply to a request for remark in time for publication. TechCrunch reported that OpenAI has confirmed that it has acquired the area.
Dropping “GPT” from the chat.com area aligns with OpenAI's latest rebranding efforts. In September, the corporate introduced a brand new sequence of reasoning fashions beginning with “o1”. On the time, former analysis director Bob McGrew stated The Verge he hoped the o1 sequence would mark “step one of newer, more healthy names” to higher talk the corporate's work. Nonetheless, as TechCrunch reported, the corporate doesn't host ChatGPT on chat.com, so this possible isn't an official title change.
Individuals hoarding “self-importance domains” is a narrative as previous because the web itself. Just some months in the past, AI startup Buddy spent $1.eight million on the good friend.com area after elevating $2.5 million in funding. For OpenAI, greater than $10 million is a drop within the bucket — the startup simply raised $6.6 billion.