THIS WEEK: After Trump's "super intelligence" order, Slovenia's .si domain overtook .ai in new registrations. The rush is documented. The insider-profit claim is not. The brand risk is real either way.

Trump Renamed AI. Slovenia's .si Domain Went Wild. Here's What to Check Today.

After the "super intelligence" executive order, .si registrations overtook .ai. Netcraft counted more than 44,000 names that exist under both extensions.

A single naming change moved real money last week. It also created a brand risk most companies have not priced in.

On September 19, President Trump posted a Truth Social poll asking whether artificial intelligence should be renamed "super intelligence," or SI. He used the term at the United Nations on September 22. On September 29, he signed an executive order directing the federal executive branch to use "SI" and "super intelligence" in place of "AI" and "artificial intelligence."

The order's reach is narrow. The reaction in the domain market was not.

The rush, in numbers

Slovenia owns the .si domain. On a normal September day, about 100 new .si names were registered. In the week after the UN speech, registrations hit 17,621, against 7,209 new .ai names. That is roughly 2.4 times as many.

Netcraft found that .si registrations overtook .ai within 25 hours of the speech. It also counted more than 44,000 pairs where the same name exists under both extensions, such as meta.ai and meta.si. That is 22% of every .si name in existence.

Speculation is visible in the data. Just over half of the .si names Netcraft saw registered at one registrar between the poll and the UN speech were already listed for resale.

What is proven, and what is not

Investor Adam Cochran posted a 15-part thread on X on September 30. He alleges roughly 12,000 AI-related or MAGA-themed .si domains were registered or traded before the announcement, and that insiders with advance knowledge profited. He called it a criminal plot to enrich the Trump family.

The surge is real. Netcraft and several other sources document it. The insider claim is not proven. Snopes could not verify that Trump or his associates profited or had advance knowledge, and the White House denied the claim. Netcraft points to a simpler driver: ordinary speculation. Asking prices in the reporting are not completed sales, and nobody has shown who bought the names.

A documented rush. An unproven accusation. Keep them separate.

Why this is your problem

Domains are priced like beachfront. AI.com reportedly sold for $70 million. Voice.com went for $30 million. OpenAI paid about $15 million for Chat.com. One headline can now create the scarcity and attention that set those prices in a single day.

The risk for you is simpler. Lookalike domains are the oldest raw material in phishing, and this rush added a lot of it at once. Today most of it sits parked. Netcraft says it will keep monitoring for cybercrime tied to .si and super intelligence terms. Your staff do not read the extension. An invoice request from a .si address that mirrors your own .com looks close enough at 5 p.m. on a Friday.

Two more points. The order covers the federal executive branch, and Netcraft has not yet detected any .gov hostnames using the new terms. If you sell to government, watch the language in solicitations. And do not relabel your products "SI" to match Washington. That is a marketing bet, not a compliance requirement.

🎯 Insider Take: The B.R.A.N.D. Checklist

You cannot control who registers a name. You can control how fast you spot a fake one. Five checks, about an hour.

B. Block: search for lookalikes of your brand

Scan your main domain and your flagship product names for lookalikes, including .si. Netcraft found 44,000 matching pairs across the two extensions. Yours may be among them.

R. Register: cover only the names that matter

Secure your core brand and flagship product names. Skip the rest. Paying inflated aftermarket prices just funds the speculators.

A. Alert: warn finance, HR and support

Tell the teams that handle payments, payroll and credentials to treat unfamiliar sender domains as suspect, especially .si addresses that mirror yours.

N. Naming: do not rebrand on a headline

An order that governs federal agencies does not govern your products. Wait for a customer or contract reason before you change your language.

D. Document: record your government exposure

If you sell to federal buyers, note where they may adopt the new terms, and keep your contract language consistent with theirs.

⚡ Quick Bites: This Week in AI

OpenAI Pulled Its Own Flagship Before Launch

OpenAI scrapped the planned October release of GPT-6.1 Astra after internal testing raised alignment concerns. It shipped GPT-6.1 Sol instead, listed at $2 and $10 per million tokens against Astra's $10 and $50.

Always-On Agents Become a Product Category

OpenAI launched Dots, which works through ChatGPT, Slack and Microsoft Teams. Users set permissions and can require approval for sensitive actions, which makes those settings a procurement question.

Google Gives Cyber Defenders Gemini 4 Argon First

Google says the model can autonomously find, validate and fix critical vulnerabilities, and scores 68% on CWE-bench v1. Access starts with trusted defenders before paid API and Ultra tiers.

AI-Generated Junk Reports Freeze Google's Bug Bounty Intake

Google paused product flaw submissions to its OSS Vulnerability Reward Program after an influx of invalid AI-driven reports. It plans an update by Q1 2027.

📊 Data Pulse: The Numbers This Week

17,621

New .si Domains in the Week After the UN Speech
New .ai names over the same week: 7,209, about 2.4 times fewer.

~100

New .si Domains on a Normal September Day
The rush pushed daily volume to roughly 2,500, about 25 times that pace.

22%

Share of .si Names That Also Exist as .ai
More than 44,000 matching pairs, per Netcraft.

$70M

Reported Sale Price of AI.com
Voice.com sold for $30 million; OpenAI paid about $15 million for Chat.com.

🔧 Tool Spotlight

dnstwist (Open-Source Lookalike Domain Finder)

The easiest way to run the "B" in the BRAND checklist, for free

What it is: An open-source tool under the Apache 2.0 license. You give it your domain, it generates likely lookalikes such as typos and swapped characters, and it checks which ones are actually registered.

Why it matters now: The .si rush put tens of thousands of lookalike candidates into the market in days. A scan takes minutes and tells you whether anyone has already registered a twin of your name.

Who gets it: IT and security teams, and any founder comfortable running one command. Non-technical leaders can forward this to whoever manages the company domain.

• Installs with pip, Homebrew or Docker
• Supports custom TLD lists, so you can add .si to the check
• Exports results as CSV or JSON for your security team

💬 Quote of the Week

"An expectation is not an agreement."

Judge Amit Mehta · U.S. District Judge · dismissing Chegg and Penske Media's antitrust suits over Google's AI Overviews, October 2, 2026

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