ICANN reveals 1,615 new domain applications, and AI suffixes like .agent and .agi are crowded

The internet is getting new endings. ICANN has revealed 1,615 applications for new top-level domains, and a surprising share of them read like an AI startup’s pitch deck.

Ten companies, including Meta and OpenAI, applied for .agent, according to The Verge. OpenAI also applied for .agi, which drew seven applicants, and .asi, which drew six.

A top-level domain is the part of a web address after the final dot. Think .com, .org, or, for the culinary-minded, .pizza. Owning one means you run the registry for every name that ends in it, a bit like owning the street rather than just a house on it.

What landed on ICANN’s desk

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers published the full list on October 7, 2026, a milestone it calls Reveal Day. The application window ran from April 30 to August 12, 2026.

The 1,615 applications came from 481 different applicants. Of the total, 333 are brand applications and 16 are community-based applications.

Applying is not cheap. ICANN charges USD 227,000 per string, so the ten applicants for .agent each wrote a check of that size for a shot at a single suffix.

Some players went wide rather than deep. Link Freedom Group submitted hundreds of applications on its own. Radix applied for 46 primary strings, and Namecheap’s Starlight Registry also joined the round.

Unstoppable Domains is in the mix too. It is working with the Sentient Foundation on AI-centric suffixes.

How crowded strings get sorted out

Filing an application is the opening move, not the finish line. The next phase is a replacement-string period running from October 8 to 21, 2026, when applicants can adjust what they are seeking.

String Confirmation Day follows on November 17, 2026. After that date, applicants that withdraw under qualifying conditions can get 65% of their fee back.

When several applicants want the same suffix, ICANN has two main tools. A community applicant can go through Community Priority Evaluation, which tests whether it genuinely represents the group it claims. If that does not settle things, the string may head to an ICANN-operated auction.

Private auctions are excluded this time. That means rivals cannot quietly pay each other to drop out and split the proceeds among themselves.

A decade-plus in the making

This is the first major application opportunity since 2012. That earlier round drew about 1,930 applications and produced over 1,200 new generic top-level domains.

So the 2026 round is smaller by application count than its predecessor. The stated goal remains the same: more choice for users and more competition within the Domain Name System.