In the newsGoogle bid $10 million for Spirit Airlines' old emails and Teams chats. ITPro
Free valuation for US businesses
AI labs are licensing how businesses actually get their work done.
Your SOPs, job histories and project records are what AI models need to learn real work. Compare offers to license them. Customer and client details stay out, and personal details are stripped before anything leaves.
What a 60-person services company holds
- SOPs, playbooks and checklistsIncluded
- Eight years of job and project historyIncluded
- Quotes, invoices and their revisionsIncluded
- Email and chat about the workIncluded
- Customer names and contact detailsStripped out
- HR, payroll and personnel filesStays in-house
Watch
The four‑minute version.
What AI companies license, how offers compare, and the questions owners ask first.
Why now
Why AI labs are paying for this now
AI models learned to write from the public internet. To do real work, like dispatching a crew, closing the books or rebooking a delayed shipment, they need examples of real work, and almost none of that is public.
It lives in your tickets, files and threads. So AI labs and the companies that supply them are licensing it from businesses directly, and they pay the most for records nobody else has.
How it works
Three steps. You approve every one.
You don't need to prepare anything for the valuation, and nothing leaves your company until you've seen it and signed off.
Get a free valuation
Answer a few questions about your company. Within one business day we email you what buyers want from businesses like yours and what drives the price. No files needed yet.
We find the buyer and do the work
We match you with buyers who want your kind of records and handle the paperwork. Personal details come out before anything leaves, and you approve every file and every term.
You get paid
Your company is paid under the license you sign. The buyer pays our fee, so it costs you nothing.
The records
What AI companies license, and what never leaves
AI companies want records of real work and how it turned out. Personal and privileged information stays out.
What AI companies license
- SOPs, playbooks and checklistsHow your team is supposed to do the work.
- Job, ticket and project historiesWhat actually happened, start to finish, and how it ended.
- Quotes, invoices and change ordersThe numbers behind each job, and how they changed.
- Reviews, edits and approvalsWhat “good” looks like at your company, in your senior people's own corrections.
- Email and chat about the workThe back-and-forth where problems got solved, with personal details stripped.
- Templates and internal documentsThe material your team wrote and reuses.
What never leaves
- Customer and client personal details: names, contact details, account numbers
- Privileged or regulated records, such as legal privilege, health information and tax returns
- HR, payroll and personnel files
- Anything you mark off-limits, from trade secrets to whole systems
How we anonymize
- Personal details are removed or replaced with placeholders.
- The cleaned files are reviewed, and you see them before anything is shared.
- Nothing leaves until you sign off in writing.
The numbers
Public offers for companies like yours have ranged from $100K to $1M+.
Per company for approved record packages, on one AI company's published program.
Source: a large AI company's public program page, Oct 2026
Offers received in August by roofing, construction, accounting, law and mortgage firms, as posted by one licensing broker.
Source: offers posted publicly by a licensing broker, Aug 2026
Paid out to nine businesses for their records in a single 24-hour stretch, by one company's own account.
Source: that company's CEO, on X, Sept 2026
We never promise a number. Value depends on how many records you have, how many years they cover and how well they're kept. Your valuation tells you where you stand.
See where you standWho licenses it
AI labs, and the companies that supply them
AI companies license operational records to train and test models that do real work. Many pay most for fields where few records are public.
AI labs
The companies building frontier models. They need records of real work to teach models to do it.
AI training companies
Firms that turn business records into training material and test environments, then supply them to the labs.
Industry AI companies
Startups building AI for one field, like finance, law or logistics, that need that field's real workflows.
Several run public programs that license records like these from companies, and one of them has just committed $1 billion over the next 12 months to licensing them.
Data Dividend is independent. We are not an agent, partner or affiliate of any company named on this site.
How we get paid
The buyer pays us a fee when a deal closes. You never pay us anything: there's no upfront cost, and if no deal closes, nobody owes anything.
Industries
Built for record-rich industries
AI companies name these fields in their own programs. Pick yours to see what's valuable and what's been offered.
- Finance & advisoryM&A boutiques, PE/VC firms, consultanciesDeal rooms, models, memos and the review comments that show judgment.
- Trades & field serviceHVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, constructionJob tickets, estimates, dispatch logs and technician notes.
- Logistics & freightFreight forwarders, brokers, 3PLsQuotes, bookings, exceptions, dispatch logs and invoices.
- ManufacturingComponents, packaging, chemicals, fabricationWork orders, QA logs, spec sheets and batch records.
- Accounting & bookkeepingAccounting, bookkeeping and tax practicesClose checklists, reconciliations, review notes and SOPs.
- Law firmsSmall and mid-size firmsTemplates, clause libraries, checklists and matter workflows.
- Real estate & mortgageMortgage brokers, lenders, brokeragesLoan conditions, QC findings, transaction timelines.
- Wholesale & distributionIndustrial, electrical, food and building-products distributorsQuotes, orders, pricing and rebate histories, returns and purchasing.
- Retail & ecommerceMulti-store retailers, online shops and DTC brandsOrders, inventory logs, listings, returns and markdowns.
- Engineering & designCivil, structural, MEP and mechanical design firmsCalculations, review markups, RFIs, submittals and test reports.
- Closing or winding downOwners closing, selling off or winding down a companyEmail and Teams history, shared drives, job and order records.
- Another industry?Insurance, software, agencies and moreAsk anyway. If AI companies want your kind of records, we'll tell you.
Who actually licenses these records, and why?
AI labs and the companies that supply them with training material. Models have already learned what's on the public internet. To do real work they need examples of it, like how a job was quoted, scheduled, done and billed, or how a reviewer corrected a draft. Most of that lives inside private companies, so AI companies license it directly.
How do you keep our records private?
Nothing leaves until it has been through three steps. Personal details (names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, account numbers) are removed or replaced with placeholders. The cleaned files are reviewed, and you see them before anything is shared. And you sign off in writing. Customer personal details, privileged or regulated records, and HR and payroll files are left out entirely.
What kinds of records are AI companies looking for?
Records of work and how it turned out: SOPs and checklists, ticket and job histories, project files, quotes and invoices with their revisions, review notes and approvals, and the email or chat threads where the work got done. Several years of history and well-kept processes count for more than a big pile of files.
We use Slack, Google, Microsoft 365, QuickBooks, ServiceTitan… does that work?
Usually, yes. AI companies work with the tools businesses already use: Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, Slack, Jira or Asana, QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite, HubSpot or Salesforce, ServiceTitan or Jobber, CargoWise and other TMSs. One buyer's own FAQ says “connecting more tools generally results in a higher payout.” You agree which systems and date ranges are in scope before anything is exported.
How long does it take, and when do we get paid?
Your valuation arrives within one business day. If you go ahead, scoping and signing usually take a few weeks. Buyers pay once the records are delivered and accepted, typically 60 to 90 days after acceptance, and some pay sooner.
Do our employees need to know?
It depends on the records. Employee names and contact details are removed like everyone else's, and HR, payroll and personnel files never leave. Some material, such as call recordings or staff messages in certain states, can carry notice or consent rules; we flag it before anything is shared. Many owners choose to tell their team, and your counsel has the final word.
What does it cost us?
Nothing. The buyer pays us a fee when a deal closes. There's no upfront cost, and if no deal happens, nobody pays anything.
What if we say no?
Then nothing happens. The valuation is free and commits you to nothing. You can stop at any point before you sign, and nothing is ever shared without your written approval.
Who are you?
Data Dividend is a service of Augment Inc., based in Plano, Texas. We're independent, not tied to any one AI lab or buyer, so our job is to find the buyer that fits your records rather than to fill one buyer's quota.
Free valuation
Get your free valuation
Two minutes. No files needed yet.
- We review your answers.
- Within one business day, we email you what buyers want from companies like yours and what drives the price.
- If it's a fit, a short call to scope what's valuable and what stays out.
Free, no obligation, and nothing is shared without your approval.