Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek’s $70M AI Gambit Hits the Super Bowl

The Seattle Seahawks may have owned the Super Bowl. But when it comes to popular event ads, AI has been the real winner. AI appeared in nearly a quarter of this year’s Super Bowl ads, including spots where Anthropic promised an ad-free version of Claude, Meta showed off its smart glasses, and Salesforce tapped MrBeast to promote its AI agent. The most specific reference to AI, however, was in an ad from AI.com, a newly launched venture from Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek.

As a platform that provides personal agents, AI.com is a latecomer to the world of autonomous AI. But Marszalek hopes his company will eventually enable the adoption of virtual agents—and he’s not afraid to find bold ways to spread his vision. Besides paying millions of dollars for a 30-second Super Bowl spot that urged viewers to subscribe to the platform, a Polish businessman shelled out a record $70 million last year for a domain name.

AI.com, which officially launched yesterday, allows users to deploy agents for many tasks, such as trading stocks, automating workflows, and reviewing online dating profiles. The service is free to use—with additional paid subscription tiers—and is looking to integrate within financial services and social networks full of people and agents for its future. “Our vision is a decentralized network of billions of agents that self-develop and share these developments with each other, a massive and rapidly growing force that will accelerate the evolution of AGI,” Marszalek said in a statement.

Releasing millions of domain names

A Polish businessman puts his money where his mouth is. Last April, Marszalek paid tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency to acquire the domain name AI.com, previously owned by Malaysian businessman Arsyan Ismail. The agreement was created by Larry Fischer, director of GetYourDomain.com.

“In deciding to sell, the previous owner sought a buyer whose vision he believed in—someone who could build a lasting legacy around one of the most important digital assets of our time,” Fischer told the Observer in a statement. “He found that buyer in Kris, even turning down the highest offers.”

This is not the first time Marszalek has embarked on an aggressive marketing campaign. He used similar tactics to propel Crypto.com, the cryptocurrency exchange he helped launch in 2016, to success. The business has roped in stars like Matt Damon into celebrity relationships and even paid $700 million to rename the Staples Center in Los Angeles as the Crypto.com Arena.

Marszalek, who now leads Crypto.com and AI.com, seems confident that his new venture will succeed in integrating AI agents in a way reminiscent of the push for cryptocurrency discovery. “When we started Crypto.com, there were a thousand different exchanges, and somehow we managed to make it work,” he told the Financial Times. “We will do this [AI.com] work in another way.”

The AI ​​platform is already making history. Marszalek’s acquisition of AI.com stands as the most expensive domain name ever to go public, more than doubling the previous record set by Voice.com, which sold for $30 million in 2019.

The niche business of domain name trading has experienced an unexpected boom during the AI ​​revolution. OpenAI spent an undisclosed amount on Chat.com, a site that sold for $15.5 million, while AI startup friend gave $1.8 million to friend.com. And in Anguilla, the British territory that controls the Internet domain “.ai”, the registration of new domain names has earned the island almost 40 million in profits in 2024 alone.