Companies are selling your emails, Slack messages, and files to train AI — and they’re getting millions.
Wired’s Steven Levy started getting cold emails claiming that AI labs pay companies $350,000 to $1.8 million as a one-time fee for their old work records: documents, emails, Slack messages, support tickets and call transcripts.
Digging in, he found a fast-growing industry of data brokers, led by firms like Mercor, Micro1 and Handshake, that buy these archives, strip out names and other personal details, and supply them to AI developers.
Some startups now even help failing companies shut down and sell their data on the way out. When bankrupt Spirit Airlines put its digital records up for sale, the bids for 80,000 email accounts and 500 million internal messages topped $10 million.
Why the rush? AI labs have largely used up public internet data, and real workplace records show models how actual businesses run, messiness and all. Micro1’s CEO predicts companies will one day earn more from selling their workflow data than from ads. But privacy experts warn that anonymizing casual messages is hard, since employees mention things like doctor’s appointments and family problems, and workers rarely get a say in a sale that could help train AI to do their jobs.
That said, the industry’s biggest figures come from the brokers themselves and haven’t been independently verified, and Anthropic told Wired it doesn’t buy workflow data from live companies, while OpenAI didn’t respond. The Spirit sale is also on hold after the flight attendants’ union objected that it included their private information, a case that could help set the rules for everyone else.
source: Levy, S. (2026, November 6). AI companies really, really want to buy your work files and emails. Wired.
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.
