As AI transforms how users search, the domain name is evolving from a traffic destination into a trust signal - crucial for citation, identity, and authority in an Internet shaped by machine-mediated discovery.
The Internet is evolving far beyond screens and smartphones. A proposed seven-stage framework anticipates a future shaped by autonomous agents, sensory wearables, global connectivity, and quantum networks redefining how humans interact with the digital world.
Despite deep geopolitical divides, the WSIS+20 outcome document was adopted by consensus, preserving a multistakeholder vision for the digital future while deferring controversial issues to a time more conducive to progress.
In 2026, internet infrastructure will be reshaped by geopolitics, grid constraints, and regulatory shifts. Firms that treat data location, power access, and legal compliance as strategic priorities will gain competitive advantage.
The domain industry in 2025 saw rapid consolidation, rising regulatory pressure, and a strategic pivot toward AI, trust infrastructure, and tokenization, reshaping domains from static web addresses into dynamic assets for digital identity and commerce.
The hiQ ruling erased legal protections against commercial scraping, leaving infrastructure providers to absorb escalating costs. Without federal action defining data misappropriation, a free-rider AI economy could undermine open networks, investment, and long-term data integrity.
Granular regulation offers a new governance framework for AI, blending flexibility with enforceability. By translating broad principles into risk-sensitive, technical mandates, it overcomes the rigidity of rule-based models and the vagueness of principle-based approaches.
As multistakeholder governance nears a critical juncture, leaders must navigate diverging views, geopolitical pressures and technological upheaval. With sovereignty concerns mounting, the Internet's institutions face a complex future that demands deft stewardship.
Unlike past technological shifts, artificial intelligence is automating high-skilled professions before low-skilled ones. This reversal challenges long-held assumptions about job security, expertise, and governance, forcing policymakers to rethink regulation, trust, and digital sovereignty.
As artificial intelligence integrates into public infrastructure, it introduces new layers of systemic risk. Policymakers must shift focus from AI's potential to its exposure, applying governance models that reflect these emerging, compound vulnerabilities.
Artificial intelligence is transforming Africa's informal economy by improving access to finance, optimizing business operations, and helping small-scale entrepreneurs transition into the formal sector, despite challenges such as digital illiteracy and infrastructure gaps.
As AI notetakers become common in virtual meetings, concerns grow over data privacy, potential misuse, and the risks of unknowingly sharing sensitive corporate information with unseen third parties beyond organizational control.
As ICANN prepares to expand the domain name space, calls grow for a public-law framework to govern the DNS root, ensuring global equity, transparency, and accountability in managing the Internet's core infrastructure.
As artificial intelligence reshapes how users navigate the web, domain names may undergo explosive growth, potentially reaching tens of billions. A new infrastructure of trusted digital identities could become essential for AI agents.
The FCC is considering whether it can preempt state-level AI regulations using telecommunications law. Legal precedent and jurisdictional ambiguity, however, make such a maneuver uncertain and likely to face significant industry and judicial resistance.
AI Boom Spurs Record Investment in Undersea Cables Amid Geopolitical and Security Concerns
Verizon and AWS Expand Network Ties to Meet AI Data Demands
Microsoft Warns Extortion Drives Majority of Attacks Amid AI Escalation, Identity Collapse, and Global Fragmentation
Stargate Expands: OpenAI and Partners Unveil Massive AI Infrastructure Push Across the U.S.
Advanced AI Is Reshaping the Cybercriminal Landscape at Alarming Speed
Meta’s Undersea Ambitions: A Cable to Power the AI Future
Meta’s $10 Billion Plan to Build the World’s Largest Subsea Cable Network
OpenAI Buys Chat.com, Redirected to ChatGPT
Apple’s New Benchmark, ‘GSM-Symbolic,’ Highlights AI Reasoning Flaws