# License Jira data to AI: what is public and what to check

> Looking to sell Jira data to AI? In practice you license it. Buyers have asked failed startups for tickets, and Atlassian says customers own their data.

By Matt Burns, Vaultfish. Canonical: https://vaultfish.com/answers/sell-jira-data-to-ai  
Published: 2026-07-12  
Updated: 2026-10-14

## The short answer

To license Jira data to AI, you export your ticket history. Mercor paid as high as $300,000 for defunct startup datasets that included Jira tickets. Atlassian says the customer owns the data. Tickets carry customer and vendor details that need a rights review before the deal.

A ticket records a problem, an owner, the steps taken and who approved the fix. That sequence is close to what agent builders say they want.

## Why does Troveo say labs want Jira tickets?

[Troveo's guide](https://www.troveo.ai/resources/sell-code-to-ai-companies) says issues and tickets linked to code are part of the development story a lab values, next to commit history and review. Our page on [RL environments](/answers/what-is-an-rl-environment) explains where such records get used.

[Forbes' report](https://www.forbes.com/sites/annatong/2026/04/16/ais-new-training-data-your-old-work-slacks-and-emails/), summarized in its own post on X, named Slack archives, Jira tickets and email threads as what labs treat as premium training data.

[Epoch AI's survey](https://epoch.ai/gradient-updates/state-of-rl-envs) describes clones of apps like Slack and does not discuss real company archives. So demand gets described more often than it gets proven.

## How does Jira data get exported?

[Atlassian's backup manager](https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/export-issues/) exports Jira work items and field content, comments, users and groups, and optionally attachments, avatars and logos. Size limits are 25 GB for the data and 50 to 100 GB for attachments.

Include attachments and you wait 48 hours between backups. The backup also skips automation flows and third-party app data.

## What do Atlassian's terms say?

The [Atlassian Customer Agreement](https://www.atlassian.com/legal/customer-agreement) says the customer owns all intellectual property and other rights in Customer Data and Customer Materials. It also says the customer may retrieve its Customer Data from the Cloud Products.

AI features fall under separate AI Terms, which I didn't read.

## What sits inside Jira tickets?

Support and service projects hold customers' own words, vendors' details and employee names. That's my reading of how teams use Jira. The rights question runs through your [customer and vendor contracts](/answers/does-my-nda-let-me-sell-data-to-ai) and the [rights check](/rights-check).

If the company is closing, see [licensing a Slack workspace during a shutdown](/answers/can-a-shutting-down-company-sell-its-slack-to-ai). The [Slack data page](/answers/sell-slack-data-to-ai) covers the chat side of the same archive.

Talk to a privacy or commercial lawyer in your state before you sign.

Our only referral relationship is with micro1, an AI data company. It may pay us a fee if a company we introduce goes ahead with it. You pay nothing extra. [How we are paid](https://vaultfish.com/disclosure)

Figure: comparison of What a Jira backup includes and leaves out: In every backup (emphasized: Included in every backup, Work items, comments), Optional media (Attachments, avatars), Not exported (Automation, app data). Work items and comments lead because every backup includes them, while media is optional and automation is excluded.

_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._

## Sources

- [Troveo's guide](https://www.troveo.ai/resources/sell-code-to-ai-companies)
- [Forbes' report](https://www.forbes.com/sites/annatong/2026/04/16/ais-new-training-data-your-old-work-slacks-and-emails/)
- [Epoch AI's survey](https://epoch.ai/gradient-updates/state-of-rl-envs)
- [Atlassian's backup manager](https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/export-issues/)
- [Atlassian Customer Agreement](https://www.atlassian.com/legal/customer-agreement)