AI.com acquired for $70 million by Crypto.com founder Kris Marszalek

AI.com has been acquired by Crypto.com founder Kris Marszalek for $70 million, placing it among the most expensive domain names ever sold and signaling a high-stakes bet on the future of AI platforms.

The deal, first reported by CoinDesk and now publicly confirmed by Marszalek himself, ends years of speculation around who would ultimately control one of the internet’s most coveted addresses.

“I purchased ai.com in April. Since then, we have created a team that has been steadily growing. There are always twists and turns, but I’m excited with our first launch this Sunday during the Super Bowl,” Marszalek said in a post on X.

I purchased https://t.co/ac2AqjBNxj in April. Since that time, we created a team that has been steadily building. There are always twists and turns, but I’m excited with our first launch this Sunday during the Super Bowl. pic.twitter.com/BbqVo1bQLZ

— Kris (@kris) February 6, 2026

AI.com Sold for $70 million to Crypto.com founder Kris Marszalek

While Marszalek did not disclose the purchase price in his statement, CoinDesk reported that the acquisition closed at $70 million.

“AI․com has been acquired by @cryptocom founder Kris Marszalek for $70 million,” CoinDesk said on X.

AI․com has been acquired by @cryptocom founder Kris Marszalek for $70 million pic.twitter.com/rjbn21Gou1

— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk) February 6, 2026

The Financial Times also confirmed the $70 million price, reporting: “AI.com bought by Crypto.com founder for $70mn in biggest-ever website name deal.”

The timing of the confirmation adds weight to the deal. AI.com is set to debut publicly during the Super Bowl, one of the world’s largest commercial stages, suggesting the domain is meant to serve as a front-door platform rather than a passive brand asset.

Marszalek framed the project as more than a consumer AI product. In a follow-up post, he described a long-term vision tied to autonomous systems and agent-based networks.

“ai.com is on a mission to accelerate the arrival of AGI by building a decentralized network of autonomous, self-improving AI agents that perform real-world tasks for the good of humanity. Try it this Sunday and send me your feedback. We will be iterating hourly. We built Crypto.com as a community. We will do the same with  ai.com.”

The sale arrives three years after AI.com last changed hands. In March 2023, TechStartups reported that the domain had been sold for $11 million. Saw.com, the brokerage firm behind that transaction, confirmed the sale at the time, saying it had sold AI.com “to someone in the NFT space,” without naming OpenAI, which had been widely rumored as the buyer.

This latest transaction resets expectations for top-tier AI-driven digital real estate. Ultra-short domains with broad category meaning are increasingly treated as strategic infrastructure rather than marketing tools, especially as AI platforms compete to define how users interact with intelligent systems.

Following the acquisition, ai.com published a detailed announcement outlining its initial product direction. According to the release, the platform allows users to create private AI agents that go beyond chat interfaces. These agents are built to operate on a user’s behalf, handling tasks such as organizing work, sending messages, executing actions across applications, and building projects. The agents can develop missing capabilities on their own, with improvements shared across the network to raise overall utility.

The company says agents operate in secure, isolated environments, with user-controlled permissions and encrypted data. Future features are expected to include workflow automation, financial integrations, agent marketplaces, and social collaboration between humans and AI agents.

Marszalek will serve as CEO of both ai.com and Crypto.com. He previously built Crypto.com into one of the world’s largest crypto platforms, with more than 150 million users globally.

ai.com is scheduled to launch publicly on February 8, 2026, alongside its Super Bowl commercial debut.

“We are at a fundamental shift in AI’s evolution as we rapidly move beyond basic chats to AI agents actually getting things done for humans,” Marszalek said. “Our vision is a decentralized network of billions of agents who self-improve and share these improvements with each other, vastly and rapidly expanding agentic capabilities and accelerating the advent of AGI.”

Whether the platform lives up to that ambition remains to be seen. What is clear is that the $70 million acquisition of AI.com marks a rare moment where a domain name, a platform launch, and a mass-market rollout converge on the same day — and on the biggest advertising stage in the world.