Artificial intelligence developers including OpenAI and Anthropic are facing a dearth of quality content on the open web and have turned their attention to internal corporate data. Today, companies are actively purchasing chat logs, email communications, video conference recordings, and code change histories because they document real-life problem-solving processes, discussions of financial metrics, and professional communications.
According to data broker Protege, transaction volume in this space has grown from $30 million last year to $100 million this year. Data from startups on the verge of bankruptcy or acquisition are particularly popular: startup Warmly, for example, received offers to buy job profiles worth up to $300,000.
The growth of the market makes privacy protection issues extremely urgent. Intermediaries say they implement strict anonymization processes to remove personally identifiable information while retaining the value of the data used to train neural networks.