Will domain names still be relevant in future?
This is a question the domain name industry has been facing for several years, but technological developments are making it more pertinent than ever. AI agents and assistants, the growing platform economy and changing consumer behaviour are gradually reshaping the way users navigate the Internet, search for information and interact with businesses online. Recent developments illustrate this shift: the European Commission’s designation of ChatGPT as a Very Large Online Search Engine (VLOSE) under the Digital Services Act,[1] OpenAI’s introduction of advertising in ChatGPT, and the emergence of “agentic commerce”,[2] which allows consumers to purchase products directly within an AI system such as ChatGPT. While the latter is currently geographically limited to the United States of America, it nonetheless points to a broader trend towards online interactions taking place increasingly within platforms and AI-powered interfaces rather than through direct visits to individual websites.
This does not necessarily make the underlying web infrastructure obsolete. Businesses may still require a hosted website and a domain name as part of their digital presence and technical infrastructure. It does, however, raise a more fundamental question: will traditional domain names retain the same visibility, strategic value and relevance they have had until now?
These and other questions are explored in the annual Global Domain Report (GDR) 2026. Published free of charge by InterNetX and Sedo, the GDR can be described as a market-oriented “state of the industry” report, covering developments in the global domain name ecosystem. Its scope ranges from market and registration trends to governance and regulatory developments, emerging technologies and the evolving landscape of DNS abuse.
The GDR 2026 edition adopts a particularly creative framing: using the space vehicle “Domain Voyager GDR-26”, the report presents its analysis as a journey through the complex domain name universe.[3] Its stated mission objectives are to:
Assess the 2025 coordinates of the domain universe;
Identify the brightest Top-Level Domain (“TLD”) constellations;
Analyze the star map of the new generic Top-Level Domain (“gTLD”) nebula;
Detect dark spots and warning lights in the Domain Name System (“DNS”) cosmos; and
Capture reflections from industry navigators.
The Global Domain Report 2026
I. Looking back at 2025
The GDR 2026 starts by looking back at the trends and developments of 2025. The report highlights the following main developments:
Easier website creation drove renewed domain demand. The underlying view is that domains remain a foundational element of digital identity despite changes in how websites are built.
Trust and security remained central to sustainable growth. The industry’s growth depends not merely on registration numbers, but on maintaining safe and reliable namespaces for users and organizations.
The industry became more commercially and regulatorily mature. The report points to registry infrastructure changes, rising wholesale costs, continued registrar consolidation, progress toward the 2026 new gTLD round and the EU Directive 2022/2555 on network and information systems (“NIS2 Directive”) related identity-verification requirements in EU.
AI became a significant driver of the domain name ecosystem. 2025 is described as the year in which “AI became mainstream” and where generative AI apps (especially for building websites) doubled. At the same time, anticipation of the new gTLD round and demand for premium names influenced longer-term domain strategies.
II. Trends in 2026
The domain trend for 2026 is framed as “reaching new all-time highs in a mature industry”.[4] The domain name space continued to expand, with ccTLDs returning to a positive growth and new gTLDs being the front-runner of this dynamic.
One of the most striking developments is the continued rise of the gTLD .xyz. For the first time, .xyz entered the global top ten TLDs, with around 8.1 million registrations. It was also one of the strongest performers in absolute terms, adding approximately 4.2 million registrations in 2025. At the same time, the growth of .ai is difficult to overlook. Even though .ai is the country code for Anguilla, it is obvisouly used in a much broader spectrum for domain names that want to create a connection to the technology or systems of artificial inteligence. The .ai registrations reached the “million-registration mark”. What is equally noteworthy, is the continued strength of established country-code domains. In particular, .de remains one of the strongest ccTLDs worldwide (3rd place after .tk and .cn) and the leading ccTLD in Europe, with more than 18 million registrations.
In terms of EU regulatory compliance, the digital sector has been heavily regulated over the past years, and the domain name industry is increasingly feeling the effects of this broader regulatory shift. In the same report, Polina Malaja from CENTR (Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries), the association representing primarily ccTLD registries, highlights that compliance is becoming a new “cost of entry” for domain operators. The implementation of the NIS2 Directive has affected the registries and even further regulatory changes will need to be implemented in the upcoming months and years, such as the E-Evidence Regulation, obligations deriving from the EU AI Act and potentially the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). Nonetheless, it is mentioned that the EU is conducting a Digital Fitness Check looking to simplify legislation. Lastly, a great portion of the report is devoted to the new gTLD round 2026, which is discussed in here.
a) Web3 Domains
Web3 domain names have not existed for too long, but have already sparked an interest in the industry and might futher shape its future. Unlike traditional DNS domain names, which are registered through registries and registrars within the conventional DNS infrastructure, Web3 domains are generally blockchain-based naming identifiers. They can associate a human-readable name with a cryptocurrency wallet address, decentralized content, identity information or other on-chain data.[5] For example, the Ethereum Name Service (“ENS”), a distributed, open, and extensible naming system based on the Ethereum blockchain, converts human-readable names under the TLD .eth, e.g. stefanie.eth, to machine-readable identifiers such as Ethereum or other cryptocurrency addresses, and metadata. One could describe ENS as a parallel universe to the DNS. The Web3 domain .eth is distributed via the ETH Regsitrar which tokenizes those names on the Ethereum Blockchain. The above example is only one of many Web3 domains and decentralised naming systems.
The report defines .eth, .nft, .crypto and .wallet as the leading Web3 extensions. Those are closely connected to digital identity, payments, wallets, NFTs and blockchain applications. Furthermore, the report suggests that despite the earlier boom of Web3 domain in the years 2022-2023, the total Web3 domain registrations have shrunk. In the report’s survey, 59% participants mentioned that they don’t own or would not consider registering Web3 domain names and that there are other factors and trends that have the greatest impact on the market players’ strategy, revenue or operations, where Web3 domain adoption is only at 31%. This percentage is certainly not small, but it shows an overall trend that the Web3 domains are not yet a dominant force in the traditional market.
b) AI-driven changes
According to the report, AI is not expected to make domain names obsolete; rather, it is likely to change the role they play. What has been mentioned above regarding the consumer behaviour change is also reflected in the GDR. As such, the traditional “search → click → website” journey is increasingly being replaced by interactions that end within AI chats, assistants and generated overviews.[6] In that environment, a domain name may become less important purely as a destination, but more important as a stable marker of identity and an anchor for trust. Domain names will help users and AI systems understand who is behind the information, where it comes from and whether it can be relied upon. This will give domain names a broader technical and governance function as well. In that context, the broader and ever-enlarging regulatory frameworks that apply to domain names will become a vital part of facilitaing that transition. The intented and future legislation should therefore promote and enhance a stable environment, secure infrastructure and efficient control mechansisms.
The report’s broader outlook for 2026 reinforces this picture. AI will continue to shape or rather reshape the domain name landscape, from AI-assisted domain name discovery and recommendations to the broader shift in understanding what the purpose of a domain name will be. Market players will adapt their business models accordingly and regulatory governance will continue to play a major role in advancing technologies, securing the DNS and creating the right environment for growth and “co-habitation” with relevant AI advancements.
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About the author:
Stefanie Efstathiou is a dual-qualified lawyer (Greece and Germany) specializing in Intellectual Property, AI, Data Protection and Alternative Dispute Resolution, with particular expertise in domain name disputes. She serves as in-house counsel at DENIC eG, the registry for .de domain names, and acts as a panelist for several domain name dispute resolution providers. Her academic and professional work lies at the intersection of technology and ADR, where she is also pursuing a PhD at the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich on AI and Arbitration. In addition to her academic engagement, she also contributes as a member of an international task force developing guidelines on the use of AI in Arbitration, and regularly engages in conferences, professional networks, and publications in this field.
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Editors: Mihaela Maravela (Maravela Legal) and Mihaela Apostol (ArbTech)
[1] European Commission, Presse Release of 31 August 2026 regarding “Commission designates ChatGPT, Reddit, Roblox under Digital Services Act“, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_1772.
[2] OpenAI, Announcement regarding “Buy it in ChatGPT: Instant Checkout and the Agentic Commerce Protocol”, https://openai.com/index/buy-it-in-chatgpt/.
[3] Global Domain Report 2026 published by InterNetX and Sedo. https://hub.internetx.com/en/en/global-domain-report-2026.
[4] Id, p. 9.
[5] ENS, “What is the Ethereum Name Service?”, https://docs.ens.domains/learn/protocol/.
[6] Global Domain Report 2026, p.63.
