AI firms are offering money for companies’ old emails and work files

In short: More companies are being approached to sell copies of old internal work files, including emails and chat logs, for training AI systems.

What's going on

A new kind of sales pitch is showing up in business inboxes. The message says AI labs such as Anthropic and OpenAI are paying media companies a one-time fee to get a copy of their old work records.

The files mentioned include documents, emails, Slack messages (work chat), and support tickets (records of requests and fixes). The pitch claims payments can range from about $350,000 to $1.8 million for a copy of these archives.

This is part of a broader push involving data brokers, which are companies that collect and sell data. In this case, they are collecting internal corporate files that can be used to train AI models. Training means feeding an AI lots of examples so it can learn patterns, like giving a student many past homework assignments to study.

What to watch

The big question is how companies handle privacy and permission. Work files often include sensitive information, like private conversations, business plans, or details about sources and customers. Even if names are removed, it can be hard to fully strip out clues about people and projects.

Expect more debate inside companies about whether the money is worth the risk, and whether employees and partners should get a say before internal records are copied and sold.

Source: Wired