The Deep View: Data brokers are hungry!

Posted on August 28, 2025 by michelleclarke2015
The data brokers feeding AI’s hunger

Perplexity’s downloads jumped from 790,000 in June to 6.69 million in July after the company partnered with Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel. The AI search company offered free access to Bharti Airtel customers, but the real prize wasn’t user acquisition — it was behavioral data that can’t be scraped from the internet. OpenAI, Google and Perplexity are looking beyond broad web scraping and into surgical data partnerships. OpenAI struck deals with e-commerce giants Shopee and Shopify, while Google and Perplexity offered free tools across India. These moves capture structured consumer queries, product behaviors and transactional data that reveal how people actually think and shop.

The Shopify integration exemplifies this strategy perfectly. Code strings in ChatGPT’s web bundle show “buy_now” buttons and “shopify_checkout_url” parameters that enable purchases within conversations. The commission revenue matters less than behavioral data generated when users shop through natural language.

Shutterstock transformed from stock photos to an AI training data goldmine, generating $104 million in 2023 from partnerships with Meta, OpenAI and Apple. The company projects $250 million in AI licensing by 2027.

Meanwhile, Meta invested $14.8 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI, but bootstrapped competitor Surge AI quietly hit $1 billion in revenue versus Scale’s $870 million — without raising venture capital.

Chinese AI drug discovery companies demonstrate how geographic data advantages create competitive moats. They landed multibillion-dollar deals with AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Sanofi partly because they access health data covering 600 million people through the national insurance system. Copyright lawsuits and FTC warnings about partnership risks make unauthorized scraping increasingly dangerous.I keep thinking about that Perplexity download spike in India and what it really represents. Millions of Indians suddenly got free access to advanced AI search, which sounds generous until you realize they’re essentially unpaid data laborers training American models. OpenAI claims to be “democratizing AI access” while extracting behavioral data that enhances their models’ intelligence and value. The benefits flow in one direction while the data flows in the other.Surge AI’s billion-dollar bootstrap success proves you don’t need Silicon Valley’s venture capital machine to build massive data businesses. However, that’s the exception that proves the rule — most players can’t compete without deep pockets or geographic data monopolies, such as China’s health system.
 

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About michelleclarke2015

Life event that changes all: Horse riding accident in Zimbabwe in 1993, a fractured skull et al including bipolar anxiety, chronic fatigue …. co-morbidities (Nietzche 'He who has the reason why can deal with any how' details my health history from 1993 to date). 17th 2017 August operation for breast cancer (no indications just an appointment came from BreastCheck through the Post). Trinity College Dublin Business Economics and Social Studies (but no degree) 1997-2003; UCD 1997/1998 night classes) essays, projects, writings. Trinity Horizon Programme 1997/98 (Centre for Women Studies Trinity College Dublin/St. Patrick's Foundation (Professor McKeon) EU Horizon funded: research study of 15 women (I was one of this group and it became the cornerstone of my journey to now 2017) over 9 mth period diagnosed with depression and their reintegration into society, with special emphasis on work, arts, further education; Notes from time at Trinity Horizon Project 1997/98; Articles written for Irishhealth.com 2003/2004; St Patricks Foundation monthly lecture notes for a specific period in time; Selection of Poetry including poems written by people I know; Quotations 1998-2017; other writings mainly with theme of social justice under the heading Citizen Journalism Ireland. Letters written to friends about life in Zimbabwe; Family history including Michael Comyn KC, my grandfather, my grandmother's family, the O'Donnellan ffrench Blake-Forsters; Moral wrong: An acrimonious divorce but the real injustice was the Catholic Church granting an annulment – you can read it and make your own judgment, I have mine. Topics I have written about include annual Brain Awareness week, Mashonaland Irish Associataion in Zimbabwe, Suicide (a life sentence to those left behind); Nostalgia: Tara Hill, Co. Meath.
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