Igor has been investing in .ai domain names long before it was cool. Going back over a decade was when he started acquiring names. He has 750 names and you can check out his site at Pr.ai.
Q1) What got you interested in the .ai extension?
Since childhood, I have loved reading science fiction about AI and robots and noticed the perfect correspondence of this domain zone to the topic of AI in 2010.
Q2) Were you concerned by the high cost to register a .ai domain name vs a .com or .net?
I was not involved in these domain zones or domaining in general, so price comparisons did not scare me, besides, in 2010-2011 I dreamed of future huge prices, which we are far from achieving even now.
Q3) How many .ai domain names do you currently own?
~750
Q4) If you can, can you tell us about any .ai domain name sales you have made?
Oddly enough, I am far from record sales.
I sold my first name ml.ai in 2013 for just a thousand dollars.
Then I sold portal.ai for Euro 50,000,
personal.ai for Euro 40,000,
ledger.ai for $33,333,
xxx.ai for $27,182 (Eulers 10,000) …
Q5) With such a large portfolio I imagine you get offers almost every day, would that be accurate?
Yes, but most of the offers are lowballs. They have shaken my nervous system a little, so I ignore most requests. It was especially funny when the company stor.ai offered one hundred or two hundred dollars for the store.ai because they were losing emails.
Q6) Are you surprised to see the success .ai has had in 2023?
As I already wrote, in 2010-2011 I dreamed of such huge prices for .ai names that even now it is inconvenient to disclose them.
Q7) What do you see as the future for .ai domain name?
The main danger for these names is that AI will take over the planet, and domain names will become unnecessary altogether.
Seems like Igor had really great foresight to start investing way back then thank you very much for this interview learned a lot.
Igor is one of the biggest holders of all. His last comment is terrifying. Relax Igor, we still have some time left. AI will transform humanity for the better. Go watch Prometheus, and know that Walter (not David) is our ally!
Incredible foresight, those sales are absolute STEALS (they obviously happened years ago and required people to be courageous and have insane foresight). Fortune favors the brave.
This wasn’t chance. Well done to you!