Companies Desperate For Data Are Buying Up Dead Airlines' Emails And Scanning Old Books

Companies seeking data for AI training are buying digital “leftovers” from defunct businesses, including internal communications and operational records. Google is reported to have purchased internal data from the defunct Spirit Airlines for $10 million to train its AI models, a dataset described as including hundreds of millions of employee emails plus Microsoft Teams messages, spreadsheets, calendars, and operational information, anonymized before sale. Google reportedly beat bidding interest from data-labeling startup Mercor, which offered $7.5 million. The article ties the trend to broader AI demand after teams consumed much of the public internet by late 2024, with other startups offering to buy winding-down companies’ data.