The Domain Is Now the Asset

New research confirms what’s been happening under the hood: AI has changed who builds online and what they’re using to build. Here’s what that means for how you merchandise domains.

Something fundamental shifted in how people build on the internet, and it happened faster than most of us expected.

For the past two decades, the barrier to getting online was technical. You needed a developer to write the code, a designer to make it look good, and a significant chunk of time before anything was live. That era is over. AI has collapsed the cost of creation to near zero, and a landing page that used to take weeks can now be up in ten minutes.

That’s not hyperbole. It’s the central finding of a research study we conducted with 1,120 decision-makers across the US and UK who actively build, manage, or own digital products. What they told us should reshape how you think about selling domains.

77% of professionals surveyed expect the importance of a good domain name to increase because of AI.

The Code Isn’t the Asset Anymore

When you can spin up a site on a weekend and throw it away if it doesn’t work, the code becomes disposable. What isn’t disposable is the domain. It’s the one thing that stays constant, travels with the brand, and signals to humans and AI systems alike that they’re seeing something worthwhile.

The builders we talked to get this intuitively. As one engineer from Vercel put it: getting a domain “legitimizes something a lot more.” That’s not just sentiment. It’s how trust works in a world flooded with AI-generated content.

40% of professionals surveyed are actively betting on keyword-rich domains to improve visibility in LLM-generated answers.

Who’s Building Now

The profile of a “builder” has expanded dramatically. AI is functioning as a virtual technical co-founder, which means people who previously didn’t have access to the tools to launch a business now do. One industry advisor described what’s happening as “the rise of the one-person billion-dollar company.”

That’s not just aspirational. Domain registrations are increasingly being tracked as a leading indicator of new small business formation, particularly in Latin America and Asia-Pacific. The person registering a domain today may not have a background in tech. They have an idea, they have AI, and they have ten minutes.

This matters for how you merchandise. The customer who was a developer two years ago might now be a solopreneur, a creator, a consultant, or a first-time founder. They’re not looking for technical specs. They’re looking for the right name.

“We are now seeing the rise of the one-person billion-dollar company. This new AI technology can allow people to have an idea and just do the idea.”— Sam Saliba, Industry Advisor, saliba.ai

Trust Is What AI Can’t Manufacture

This is the tension at the heart of the agentic web: AI has made it easier to create, but it’s also made it harder to be credible. When everything gets built, the question shifts from “does this exist?” to “can I trust this?”

A branded domain is one of the few signals that cuts through. AI systems cite sources. They surface results. A domain that clearly communicates who you are and what you do has a structural advantage in that environment. That’s why nearly four in ten professionals we surveyed are specifically seeking out keyword-rich domains — not for SEO in the traditional sense, but to be legible to AI discovery systems.

• 65% of people surveyed trust AI-recommended websites
• 30% of people surveyed cite misinformation as their top concern with AI-sourced results
• 41% of people surveyed check domain registration information when verifying a site’s credibility

The implication for registrars is direct: descriptive extensions aren’t a niche product anymore. When someone is launching a consulting practice, a fintech tool, or a health-focused service, a domain like .consulting, .finance, or .healthcare doesn’t just look professional. It performs differently in the AI discovery layer.

“It’s essential for people to claim their presence online more than ever before, because if you don’t, someone else will.”
— Reuben Gomez, Graduate Fellow, Michigan Institute of Technology

Regional data from the study supports this: 82% of US respondents expect domain name importance to grow in the next two to three years. UK respondents were at 71%. Both markets are moving in the same direction.

A website can now be launched in as little as ten minutes. The domain is the durable asset — everything else is disposable.

What This Means for Registrars

The research points to three things that a domain does in this environment — and all three are things your customers care about whether or not they’d frame it this way:

• Discoverability. A clear, branded domain name has a real shot at being surfaced by AI systems in ways a generic or confusing domain won’t be.
• Control. Social platforms and AI products will keep evolving. A domain is the one piece of digital infrastructure a builder actually controls, regardless of what changes around it.
• Credibility. Speed of launch is now table stakes. What differentiates a real business from a throwaway experiment is a name people can find, remember, and trust.

The builders entering the market right now aren't the same builders from five years ago.They’re moving faster, they’re registering more domains, and they’re thinking about their domain as a brand asset from day one. Registrars who speak that language early will have the advantage.

^{Research findings are based on a survey and 1:1 interviews in partnership with a third party research firm. The survey included 1,120 decision-makers across the US and the UK who actively manage domains, websites, or digital products. Respondents were predominantly Millennial (53%) and Gen X (24%). The 1:1 interviews consisted of 12 thought leaders in the AI, domains, and internet culture spaces. Research was conducted jointly by name.com and Identity Digital.}