ChatGPT just got easier to find when you’re searching for something
Chat.com is your new destination
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ChatGPThas just paid areported 15.5 million dollarsfor the URL chat.com, making it easier to get to ChaGPT. Now when you type Chat.com into your browser you’ll be redirected to ChatGPT.com. The move sparks rumors that theChatGPTchatbot and search engine could be about to undergo a rebrand so it is better able to compete with rivals like Google.
The redirect was announced on X.com on Wednesday when Sam Altman, CEO ofOpenAI, posted a tweet containing just the URL, chat.com.
https://t.co/n494J9IuENNovember 6, 2024
The announcement prompted immediate speculation from X.com users about whether OpenAI was going to drop the “GPT” part of the name altogether.
The chat.com domain was previously owned by Dharmesh Shah, the founder and CTO of HubSpot, who claimed in aLinkedIn postto have paid $10 million for it in 2023, but had sold it a couple of months later for “more than I paid for it”. At the time he said, “I’m not at liberty to disclose details on who the purchaser was or the price paid. Sorry.”
What’s in a name?
It’s easy to forget how new the generative AI field is. As with any emerging field of technology, brand names tend to come and go quite quickly.Googlestarted by calling its AI Bard, but this was dropped in favor ofGemini. Recently there has been speculation that Microsoft isnot happy with its Copilot AI name, and is considering “Windows Intelligence”. The move would be perhaps seen as a little too close to what Apple is doing withApple Intelligence.
The GPT part of ChatGPT stands for Generative Pre-training Transformer and refers to the type of large language model (LLM) that uses the transformer architecture but is hardly a brilliant brand name. The URL chat.com is much more memorable, and as Sharmesh Shah said when he originally purchased the URL “chat.comis absolutely brilliant in terms of simplicity, shortness and being totally on point and meeting the moment. It immediately creates user trust. Somebody (not me) will build a massively successful product/company on it.”
OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, recently launched the equally cumbersomely-named AI search engine,ChatGPT search, despite owning the much more catchy URL, SearchGPT. In September the company announced that it would be releasing a new series of LLMs starting with “o1”, which recentlysaw the light of day, just for a few short hours, by mistake.
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Graham is the Senior Editor for AI at TechRadar. With over 25 years of experience in both online and print journalism, Graham has worked for various market-leading tech brands including Computeractive, PC Pro, iMore, MacFormat, Mac|Life, Maximum PC, and more. He specializes in reporting on everything to do with AI and has appeared on BBC TV shows like BBC One Breakfast and on Radio 4 commenting on the latest trends in tech. Graham has an honors degree in Computer Science and spends his spare time podcasting and blogging.
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