.agent
Is .agent a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
.agent is contested: 13 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list, as of 7 October 2026. They are XYZ Registry, OpenAI, Identity Digital, Meta, Nano Labs, Intercap, Meitu, Alibaba and 5 more, listed below.
A well-timed name for the AI-agent wave with real startup appeal, but it must compete with entrenched AI naming habits.
AI-agent startups, developer-tool and automation companies naming agent products or giving agents addressable identities; a secondary pool of human agents (real estate, travel, insurance) and agencies
One of 46 ICANN 2026-round applications Radix announced on its own applications page. Radix states it intends to build and operate each TLD it wins.
Community application for .agent, announced on the Agent Community's own blog: submitted 12 August 2026 at 23:19 UTC, the day the window closed. A community application is a distinct ICANN application type with community-priority evaluation rights. Second applicant on .agent alongside Radix.
Internet Land & Cattle states on its own site that it applied to operate .agent in ICANN's 2026 round, alongside .human and .robot. The page carries no date; recorded on 2026-09-19, the day the founder surfaced it. Third applicant on .agent after Radix and the Agent Community.
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet exactly: a short, generic noun for an autonomous software actor, sold to technology companies and developers who want their automated product to carry the category word as its primary identity, and it only works if the category noun becomes the default label for the thing rather than one vendor's term.
Same shape of bet — an unqualified software-artifact noun that any builder in a fast-growing product category could put their primary identity on — differing mainly in scale, since .app was betting on an already-universal word while .agent bets on one still consolidating.
Captures the target's other reading: a bare occupational-role noun for someone who acts on a principal's behalf, sold to individual practitioners and firms in a licensed trade, which works only if practitioners will move their professional identity off .com.
What a .agent domain is
.agent is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, in our AI & tech category. 13 applications for it are on ICANN’s Reveal Day list.
Is the .agent domain extension real yet?
.agent is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. It is a string applicants have put forward in the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, the process that decides whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .agent domain?
You can’t yet. A .agent name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .agent was .bot, delegated on 5 December 2015.
Is .agent a real TLD?
Not yet. .agent is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because .agent is on ICANN’s Reveal Day list of applied-for strings. Every entry on this page links to its source.
- XYZ Registry · first recordedICANN
- Identity Digital · first recordedICANN
- OpenAI · first recordedICANN
- Meta · first recordedICANN
- Nano Labs · first recordedICANN
- Intercap · first recordedICANN
- Meitu · first recordedICANN
- Alibaba · first recordedICANN
- EchoStar · first recordedICANN
- Google Registry · first recordedICANN
- Radix · now confirmedICANN
- Agent Community · now confirmedICANN
- Internet Land & Cattle · now confirmedICANN
- Internet Land & Cattle · first recordedInternet Land & Cattle (ilc.llc), the applicant's own site
- Agent Community · first recordedAgent Community
- Radix · first recordedRadix
“CRRI2564-T76881 · Charleston Road Registry Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-3 EDCL2689T-T94739 · ECHO Domain Co L.L.C. · primary · contention set 2026-3 ELL2677T-T98634 · Elegant Leader Limited · primary · contention set 2026-3 FCL2696T-T15158 · FireLabs Capital Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-3 ILCL2673T-T99017 · Internet Land & Cattle LLC · primary · contention set 2026-3 IRI2679T-T53136 · Intercap Registry Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-3 ITL2677T-T74240 · Ipollo Tech Ltd · primary · contention set 2026-3 MRHL2653T-T66196 · Meta Registry Holdings LLC · primary · contention set 2026-3 OARI2643T-T22843 · Open Agent Registry, Inc. · primary · contention set 2026-3 OOL2614T-T24226 · OPENAI OPCO, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-3 RC2677T-T71607 · Rein Check, LLC · primary · contention set 2026-3 RTIS2674T-T51870 · Radix Technologies Inc SEZC · primary · contention set 2026-3 XL2625T-T26605 · XYZ.COM LLC · primary · contention set 2026-3”ICANN
“Internet Land & Cattle applied to operate the .human, .agent and .robot top-level domains in ICANN's 2026 round.”Internet Land & Cattle (ilc.llc), the applicant's own site
“On 12 August 2026, at 23:19 UTC, I pressed submit on the biggest thing I have ever been part of.”Agent Community
“Radix has applied for these TLDs; we do not own or operate them today.”Radix
- I place .agent in the 50-69 band (strong niche TLD), at 63. The string exactly matches one of the fastest-growing software categories of the current cycle, and it doubles as a common English profession word, giving it two demand pools; by analogy with how .ai (a repurposed country-code) became the AI category's naming default, a semantically perfect AI-era string can attract genuine primary-identity use, not just defensive or speculative registrations. It is not in the 70-89 band because category-standard status inside AI is already occupied by an incumbent naming habit, new gTLDs have historically needed years to earn primary-identity credibility (analogy: .app and .dev built real but gradual developer adoption; .bot, a restricted agent-adjacent string, saw shallow uptake), and there is no verified evidence yet of serious projects choosing it. It is not in the 30-49 band because the semantic fit is too strong and too current for demand to be purely price-driven, and the applicant is an established portfolio registry that states it intends to operate what it wins, which supports real distribution rather than shelfware (stated neutrally, from the record). My main market uncertainty: whether agent-native naming becomes a real convention over the next 5 years — i.e., whether autonomous agents themselves need resolvable, ownable identities at domain level — which would pull .agent toward infrastructure status, versus AI branding demand continuing to pool on the incumbent AI-associated namespace.