Thirteen applications were filed for .agent. No other string in the round has as many. All thirteen sit in ICANN contention set 3, which means that, as things stand, one of them at most will operate it.
Twelve standard applications
Twelve of the thirteen are standard applications: no community, brand or geographic flag. They differ on what the word means Q118.
For some it is software first. Meta Registry Holdings writes, in full: "An autonomous AI system." XYZ.COM: "AGENT is software designed to perform tasks and take action autonomously on behalf of a user or system. It does not just respond. It gets to work." Ipollo Tech uses the textbook sentence: "An agent is anything that can be viewed as perceiving its environment through sensors and acting upon that environment through actuators."
For others the word keeps its older sense. ECHO Domain Co lists "customer service agents, insurance agents, real estate agents" next to AI agents Q118. Radix names "the human agent professions and the fast-growing field of software agents" as its two registrant bases Q133.
Who the twelve are, by what each filing declares as ultimate control Q108 or shareholder Q106:
| Applicant | Declares |
|---|---|
| Charleston Road Registry Inc. | Alphabet Inc. |
| Meta Registry Holdings LLC | Meta Platforms, Inc. |
| OPENAI OPCO, LLC | shareholder: OpenAi Group PBC |
| Elegant Leader Limited (HK) | Alibaba Group Holding Limited |
| ECHO Domain Co L.L.C. | Charles William Ergen, EchoStar Corporation |
| FireLabs Capital Ltd (HK) | Meitu,Inc. |
| Ipollo Tech Ltd (KY) | Nano Labs Ltd |
| Rein Check, LLC | Ethos Capital Digital Infrastructure UGP LLC |
| Radix Technologies Inc SEZC | Bhavin Turakhia |
| XYZ.COM LLC | Michael Ambrose, Daniel Negari |
| Intercap Registry Inc. | Jason Adam Chapnik |
| Internet Land & Cattle LLC | shareholder: TG ILC Holdings LLC |
Three of the twelve offer voluntary safeguard commitments Q170: Charleston Road Registry, FireLabs Capital and Ipollo Tech. Six declared a replacement string; four of those were already deactivated on 7 October.
One community application
The thirteenth, Open Agent Registry, Inc., is the only one filed as a community TLD Q131, and the only one that proposes Registry Voluntary Commitments Q172.
Its mission statement opens: "The mission of .agent is trust: a home on the internet for the Agent Community, where holding a name means a verified operator stands behind and for the agent, and anyone dealing with that agent can check it." Q133
The filing defines the community as "engineers, researchers, organizations, builders, and operators who develop, research, deploy, or take responsibility for the operation of autonomous software agents that act on behalf of an identified principal" Q132. Its first registration policy says a name must not be activated unless the registrant has "completed identity verification establishing the registrant as an identified legal or natural person" Q151.1.
On support, the filing states that its register "held 29,808 registered members: 21,355 individuals and 8,453 organizations", and that 16,937 of them signed a letter endorsing the application Q156. The letters are attachments; ICANN does not publish them, and we have not read them.
The two commitments are about who decides. The first: "Registry Operator must operate the TLD in accordance with the instructions of the Agent Community Foundation (the 'Foundation'), with respect to registration policy" Q173.1. The second forbids assigning the registry agreement "without the prior written approval of the Agent Community Foundation" Q173.2. The filing gives its reason plainly: "the applying entity is a for-profit Delaware corporation and has taken outside investment" Q175.
What this piece does not say
A community application can receive priority over the others in its contention set if it passes ICANN's Community Priority Evaluation. Whether this one will is not something the filings can tell us, and we do not guess. What can be read today is a difference in kind: twelve standard applications, and one that sets out who must answer for a name.
Sources
- The thirteen published filings for .agent, ICANN APS, snapshot of 8 October 2026: side by side.
- ICANN contention sets published on 7 October 2026 (set 3).
- ICANN Reveal Day export of 7 October 2026 for replacement strings and their status.