Summary

  • AI.com has a wild history, bouncing from company site to AI news hub before becoming a redirecting mystery.
  • The AI.com URL now redirects to Google’s Gemini chatbot, after making pit stops at ChatGPT and Grok AI.
  • While typing AI.com might seem like an easy way to get to Gemini, you might want to bookmark Google’s actual site, considering the tumultuous history.



Way back in 1993, some visionary had the forethought to register AI.com as a domain. While the concept of artificial intelligence dates back decades before that prescient move, the URL has become more topical than ever in the last year, as companies like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI are locked in a race to get their AI chatbots to the forefront of the zeitgeist. As that’s been happening, whoever’s in charge of the domain now has been having a ball redirecting visitors to a different AI site every few months.


Text introducing the Gemini app displayed on a Google Pixel 8

Related

ChatGPT vs. Gemini: Which gives the better answers?

Gemini is bringing ChatGPT some much needed competition

As spotted by 9to5Google, visiting AI.com now redirects you to gemini.google.com, the home of Google’s Gemini chatbot. If you’re a frequenter of AI forums, you might have noticed that this URL had been redirecting users to ChatGPT at times in 2023 before switching to Twitter’s Grok chatbot at X.ai sometime later in the year. Then in February, some users spotted that the URL redirected them to an MKBHD video on YouTube about AI. What gives?


AI.com’s tumultuous history

Digging back through the Internet Archive history for ai.com paints an interesting picture — one that makes you think somebody might be out there having a little fun with the recent generative AI craze.

In its earliest days, AI.com was home to Advanced Instruments Corp., a company providing tech-related services to businesses. It was a stable time for the URL, with the Littleton, CO company hosting its site there through the turn of the century (though it did drop the Comic Sans look by the year 2000). As of the late 2000s, AI.com had changed hands, becoming home to a site that hosted news about AI technologies.


A screenshot of the AI.com website from 1996 showing comic sans fonts and a business that isn't related to artificial intelligence
AI.com’s early days look about as 90s as you’d expect

By 2017, it was home to a more modern-looking AI news site claiming to be “the artificial intelligence epicenter,” complete with a Matrix-style animated background that you could download (anybody remember that Nexus One live wallpaper?). But something happened in 2018, and by 2019 the owners of the URL had an ad up saying the domain was for sale.

Screenshot showing the domain AI.com up for sale in 2018



By 2020, it was returning an HTTP 301 error (moved permanently), and from 2022 until now it has been returning a 302 (URL redirect). Once it entered this state, the apparent trolling began — as of July 2023, it was redirecting to ChatGPT, then it started sending visitors to X’s Grok AI chatbot’s landing page by November 2023. Then, around February 20, 2024, it started redirecting to the MKBHD video. But that was short-lived, as it started redirecting to Google Gemini on February 29, where the URL still sends you today.

So while typing out “ai.com” might be easier than entering “gemini.google.com” into your address bar, you might just want to make a bookmark before you get too comfortable with that shortcut. As Forrest Gump’s mama said back in the days when this site was dripping in Comic Sans, it’s a lot like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re going to get.