Should you license direct to an AI lab or through a broker?
The short answer
License through a marketplace or direct program, since no lab publishes a company-data intake. micro1's partnership, Handshake AI and Troveo are visible routes. Google, the only named lab-side bidder, won Spirit Airlines' archive with a $10M bid, pending court approval. Marketplaces add matching and privacy review, often with unpublished fees.
Legally, a "data broker" resells consumer data and must register in some states. So this site calls the companies in between marketplaces and buyers.
Do AI labs buy company data directly?
OpenAI announced a Data Partnerships effort in November 2023. It aimed to collect large-scale datasets from outside groups, with a focus on data that "expresses human intention" (TechCrunch). It targets large datasets and does not describe company records. I found no equivalent intake page from other labs.
Epoch reported that labs are doing "substantially more in-housing" of environment building. It named Mercor, Surge, Handshake and Turing as vendors (Epoch). Public reporting I read names no enterprise AI vendor buying company email or support records, outside bankruptcy sales.
What did the one public lab-side deal look like?
Spirit Airlines' archive went to a bankruptcy auction. Google won the auction with $10M, and the sale is pending court approval. Mercor bid $7.5M. micro1 offered $12.5M after the auction closed (Time).
Google said a third party would scrub personal information first. A flight attendants' union objected that the data would keep "referential integrity."
What does a marketplace add?
Troveo's own guide says licensing on your own means "finding buyers, negotiating terms, and handling packaging and privacy yourself, which is why most owners go through a marketplace" (a marketplace's view, Troveo). Handshake AI says it de-identifies and cleans data on its side before delivery to labs (Handshake AI).
What does a marketplace cost?
Troveo charges owners no fees and shares revenue on each sale. The split is unpublished. A success-fee advisor takes a percentage of what you receive, agreed in writing.
micro1 pays companies directly under data partnerships, so the question there is the amount it pays. It states tiers of $100K+, $500K+ and $1M+ (self-reported). Ask each one for the figure in writing.
A marketplace also becomes a second place your data sits. Ask who holds it and when it is deleted, using how to choose an AI data broker.
What should you do first?
Confirm you hold the rights to the records with the rights check. Then compare who handles company data. The buyer directory lists public terms. Talk to a privacy or commercial lawyer in your state before you sign.
micro1 may pay us a referral fee if a company we introduce goes ahead with it. How we are paid
Apply to micro1's data partnership (paid link)micro1's own data-partnerships pagePaid link. How we are paid
Vaultfish helps you run the process. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. If you need counsel who knows this area, we can point you to one. Ask for a referral
