We’re hard at work behind the scenes at Cloudfest USA to ensure that come November we put on the best event possible, and we hope you’re as excited as we are! But CloudFest USA isn’t just an annual event, it’s a year-round effort. We’re thrilled to present our second published Q&A, an interview with Rachel Sterling, Chief Marketing Officer at Identity Digital, as well as a member of the CloudFest USA Advisory Board.
Editors Note: This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity
Let’s start off with the biggest recent news. Last month, all .ai domains were migrated to Identity Digital’s global server network. How did this partnership with the Government of Anguilla come together and what does it mean for all .ai domains?
A: The government of Anguilla manages the .ai TLD and they put it up for a RFP, so Identity Digital threw our hat in the ring. We wanted to participate, and they ultimately decided to award us the RFP. And where we are right now is the AI domain has definitely become the dominant form for online presence for this next generation of artificial intelligence technology.
And we’re very pleased to see that since we have secured this business with the government of Anguilla, we’ve been able to enhance the stability, sustainability, security and resilience of the .ai domain name. We’ve doubled the number of retailers that are actively selling .ai worldwide, which means more people have access to be able to buy .ai. On January 15, we completed the migration of 600,000 registered .ai domains to our platform without any downtime or negative impact.
What we’ve also seen is performance continues to improve for .ai. Compared to 2024, we’ve seen a 46% year over year increase in domains created. Since Identity Digital began operating the domain, we’ve delivered 100% more renewals than the previous year in the same timeframe. And then we’re really optimistic about what this means for the government of Anguilla. We’re enabling startups and companies across the entire AI ecosystem to build their businesses on a trusted and resilient platform. Nobody wants to buy a domain and build brand equity in that domain name just to find out that it’s gone and not relevant anymore, or that it’s not safe anymore, and so we’re just really optimistic about the future of the relationship and what this means for Anguilla. It’s a big part of their revenue as an island nation, and it allows them to have a lot of sovereignty over their own financial decisions.
As a repeat CloudFest USA panelist, what topic or topic ideas are most front of mind for you in 2025?
A: I’m a marketer by trade, and I spent a decade working in social media, so I’m most fascinated by the explosion of new platforms that are using domains as their backend technology. The one that comes to mind first and foremost is Bluesky, and so Bluesky represents a changing approach to how people perceive identity on the internet. You’re using a domain as your handle and you have the flexibility to import your own domain as your identity and your handle on that platform.
There’s a lot of different use cases that you can explore when looking at a domain as an identity vehicle on social media. There’s been a massive influx of users to the Bluesky social network, and bots and bad actors are beginning to flood the platform. Those bad actors are contributing to accounts that impersonate users and increased risks associated with the proliferation of misinformation. Legacy social media has adopted an approach where they have a blue check verification system, but Bluesky is not doing that. It seems like a really great opportunity for a platform like Bluesky to leverage domains as a verification vehicle. Like, if you own your own domain, Bluesky is not responsible for verifying. You, as your own entity, verify your own identity on these platforms, so the agency goes to the user instead of the platform.
In addition to solving for verification, owning a domain that links directly to your social profile allows you to build a cohesive online identity. So my vision for the future is this experience where you have a Website, you have a domain associated with that Website, and that domain now becomes your personal brand, your personal identity across any platform that is leveraging domains as their back end system for identity.
I think of the 2010s as the decade of social, I think the 2020s are back to the decade of Websites, and there’s going to be a proliferation of tools and resources that leverage AI, allowing even non-native coding people to build truly customized experiences online.
What are you most looking forward to about CloudFest USA and its move to Miami?
A: I think CloudFest has done a historically good job connecting with European businesses, because they have their annual pilgrimage to Rust in Germany. Miami is so different because it’s the heart of Latin American culture in the United States, and it’s an international destination for Latin American businesses. Shifting CloudFest to Miami will increase access to businesses based in Latin America that may have not been historically served by the CloudFest community. That makes me really excited about Miami.
As with any CloudFest, I’m excited for the opportunity to network with industry leaders and partners in the industry, and I’m also curious to see how this continued boom in AI is affecting technology development and strategy.
If you could program your own fireside chat with one person currently working in the industry, who would it be and why?
A: Mira Murati, the former chief technology officer of OpenAI who just started her own AI company called Thinking Machine Labs. Mira was instrumental in building the technology that we now view as the backbone of the AI revolution in ChatGPT, Dall-E and Sora. Mira was also present during a time of great upheaval at OpenAI when Sam Altman was pushed out, and I don’t think we ever fully got the true story on what happened there. There’s been plenty of contentious philosophical debates about the future of AI, and during that time it spilled out into public view, and I’d love to ask her questions about that.
Additionally, some people have surmised that we are fewer than seven years away from artificial general intelligence (AGI), a moment some people refer to as “the singularity.” I’d love to ask Mira questions about the philosophical future of AI in that respect.
So if I were to host Mira in a fireside chat, I would ask her questions about the technical future of AI. Some of the questions I’d ask are, “How will Thinking Machine Labs differ in their product roadmap from the growing number of tech companies that are investing in AI? How can people attending CloudFest USA better understand how to inform and incorporate this technology into their own products and solutions?….And lastly, are you optimistic or nervous for the future?”
If you could program your own fireside chat with any person, dead or alive, who isn’t currently in the industry, who would it be and why?
A: I have a bit of a polarizing answer for this. My answer is Hillary Clinton.
Last summer, I was eating dinner at a restaurant in upstate New York, and she walked in. Almost immediately, this hush fell over the restaurant. I’ve worked in entertainment and been around famous people, but had never seen anything like this before. People have a very visceral reaction to Hillary Clinton, and so I have many questions I would like to ask her.
One is, “How did you survive so many years of vitriol in the press and still feel capable of wanting to help the American people?” That’s a level of altruism, or ego, that I cannot comprehend. That’s why she’s such a polarizing choice.
I’d also ask, “There are so many things that you seemed to have prescient knowledge of back during your runs for office. How did you know some of these things were going to happen? What could you have done differently to ensure you were more successful in your goals?..Lastly, are you optimistic for the future?”
Since you “asked” Mira and Hillary this one, I’m really curious what you think. Are you optimistic or nervous about the future?
A: I’m a native New Yorker, so my natural inclination is to be more negative. It is not a huge leap for me to articulate every imaginable worst case scenario. But I’ve also spent the last 12 years living in the SF Bay Area, raising two incredibly optimistic, earnest California kids. It’s through their eyes that I’ve begun to embrace a more optimistic view of the future. People who dedicate their lives to building and expanding the bounds of technology most often do so from the position of trying to help people. I have faith in the people I’ve worked with to embark on thoughtful explorations of how emerging technology like AI will affect people.
The news often paints people who work in Silicon Valley to be money hungry and evil. That has not been my experience. The people I’ve worked with typically employ research and data before making any decision that could have a wide ranging, unanticipated trickle down effect. Am I fully optimistic for the future? No. But I am optimistic that there are lots of very smart people who are thinking carefully about how to create the best version of the future.
Sam: Thanks Rachel! Looking forward to seeing you at CloudFest USA this November and I hope all who read this will join us there!
Join CloudFest USA in Miami
November 5-6, 2025
