ICANN published 1,615 applications for new generic top-level domains on Wednesday, and AI vendors dominate the field: Meta filed 21 requests, OpenAI filed 15, and 13 separate organizations are fighting over the single string .agent.

The reveal gives enterprise IT a first look at the naming land rush — and at the routing, allowlist, and blocklist management burden that comes with a substantially larger DNS root. Existing TLDs include .com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov, and country codes such as .uk and .ca, alongside an already long list of generic strings. ICANN wants to expand that roster globally.

What did the major tech vendors apply for?

Meta's 21 applications include .aiglasses, .facebook, .instagram, .llama, .messenger, .meta, .metaai, .metaglasses, .metaverse, .muse, .superintelligence, .threads, .vrs, .wearables and .whatsapp. The company also joins the 13-way contest for .agent.

OpenAI's 15 requests range from the obvious — .chatgpt and .openai — to .asi, .codex, .deploy, .evals, .gpt, .mcp, .model, .oai, .skill and .voice. It too is chasing .agent, and it is one of seven applicants trying to register .agi, the string signifying artificial general intelligence.

Amazon submitted eight applications: .alexa, .echo, .eero, .kgs, .kuiper, .leo, .ring and .twitch. Microsoft, despite its sprawling product portfolio, sought only two — .msft and .copilot. Anthropic requested just .anthropic and .claude, and OpenClaw asked for .claw and .oss.

It remains unclear who, if anyone, will ultimately get .superintelligence or .si, but the battle for those domains is already being fought. In a counterweight to the AI focus, six organizations applied for the .human TLD.

What happens next in the process?

"Reveal Day marks an important milestone for the next expansion of the Domain Name System," said Kurtis Lindqvist, president and CEO of ICANN, in the announcement. "These applications demonstrate how organizations around the world are innovating new ways to build trusted online identities, serve their communities, and connect with internet users. ICANN remains focused on administering a fair, transparent, and predictable evaluation process grounded in the policies developed by our global multistakeholder community."

Now that the initial list is public, the process moves quickly. Applicants who also listed a second-choice string have two weeks to switch to it. The rules are strict: a replacement string must be eligible, and it cannot be identical to another applied-for primary string or another replacement string. ICANN also warned that replacement strings could end up in contention later in the program.

Once that string replacement period closes, ICANN will publish a final list. That triggers the 104-day Community Input and Objections Period, during which the general public, the ICANN community, governments, and other parties can provide input, raise concerns, or formally object to applications before final decisions are made.

Why should IT leaders care?

It will be months before ICANN sorts out the duplicate requests and decides who gets which string. But the direction is clear: hundreds of new gTLDs are coming, many of them AI-branded, and security teams will need to update filtering policies accordingly. A root zone where .agent, .agi, .gpt and .superintelligence all resolve is a phishing surface that does not exist today. Allowlists and blocklists built around the current TLD inventory will need review before the new strings go live.

The applicant count itself signals the stakes. Judging from the volume of applications, there is considerable enthusiasm for ICANN's expansion — and considerable strategic value in owning a top-level string outright.