AI data brokers offer firms $2 million for their work files

Data brokers send emails to companies to buy their work records for AI labs, a Wired writer reports. One pitch said labs pay $350,000 to $1.8 million for documents, emails, chat messages and tickets. A different pitch said $2 million. Handshake, Micro1 and Mercor are the large brokers. The writer says the trade is larger than he knew.

How it works

Brokers get records from companies and sell them to AI labs. Sunset works with startups that stop work. It removes names from the data and makes the deal with labs. Handshake licenses professional documents and buys papers from graduate students.

Mercor CEO Brendan Foody says experts who copy work do not show the full work of a business.

The numbers

Handshake offered a freelance writer $1,000 for one story. The writer did not sell. A broker, Cora, says labs spend more than $45 billion on company data. The source gives no proof for this figure.

What is not known

The brokers say they work with all the large AI labs. Anthropic says it does not buy workflow data from live companies. OpenAI gave no reply before publication.

Insight: Broker figures look much larger than outside estimates

A broker says labs spend more than $45 billion on company data. Gartner estimates that firms will pay almost $6.5 billion for AI data in 2027. Micro1 says it will spend $1 billion. The 2 figures can measure different values. The large number seems to be a sales claim that pushes firms to sell fast. Use offers that you can check to set a value for your data.