his Wednesday, Sam Altman the CEO of OpenAI, just posted on his X account a simple URL “chat.com”. When users are trying to access it, the link will
automatically open to ChatGPT. The chat.com domain represents one of the oldest domains on the web since it was registered in September 1996.
Before the OpenAI acquisition, this domain was previously owned by Dharmesh Shah, who is the CTO and also the founder of HubSpot. Dharmesh Shah managed to purchase the chat.com domain last year for $15.5 million. But just a few months later, in May, he officially announced that he sold it, but refused to disclose the buyer’s details. It should be mentioned that he confirmed the fact that the domain has been sold for a bigger amount compared to what Dharmesh originally paid for.
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Even though he didn’t disclose the buyer’s details, we think that almost all generative AI fans were thinking about a single potential buyer.
“The reason I bought chat.com is simple: I think Chat-based UX (#ChatUX) 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 A.I,”, the CTO of HubSport stated in a LinkedIn post.
But after the May announcement, he confirmed in an X post that the buyer is in fact OpenAI, and he also implied that the OpenAI company decided to pay him in shares as an alternative for cash. So, the OpenAI payment can be considered more as an exchange.
This domain addition to chatgpt.com seems to match the recent intentions from OpenAI to rebrand the generative AI tool and its online image. We must wait and see how OpenAI exactly plans to rebrand one of its most popular generative AI thinking models, and what the company brand image will look like after.
Stay tuned for more updates!