Investors, public company execs, and the media are all-in on AI buzz. Investors and startup founders are banking on the AI boom, as a record number of startups with ".ai" in their URL suffixes raised funding in 2017. Using the CB Insights' platform we identified companies with ".ai" in their URL suffix to see if more new companies were raising first fundings with that domain name. In the past, we noted that the ".io" domain was picking up steam, but it looks like ".ai" companies have surged in the past year. Last year over 220 such companies raised first-time financing, with a peak of 66 companies in Q3'17 alone.

Investors are on the hunt for AI startups, and 2016 is on track for record number of deals and dollar funding to private AI companies. "It is clear that 9 of 10 investors have very little idea what A.I. is so if you're a founder raising money, you should sprinkle some A.I. into your pitch deck," we noted in a recent newsletter. Use of'artificial intelligence,' 'A.I.,' 'chatbot,' or'bot' are winners now and might get you a little valuation bump or get the process to move quicker." The buzz is definitely there in the media. When we look at chatter about AI using our CBI Trends tool, which analyzes millions of media articles to track tech trends, we see that hype surrounding the space continues to grow.