micro1
- Established companies with 30+ full-time staff; demand strongest in the US, UK and Canada.
- Published tiers: $100K–$3M+, indicative, not an offer.
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Licensing data to AI companies
Licensing data to AI companies means letting an AI buyer use a copy of your records under a written agreement, rather than selling the records outright. AI companies need real working records to train and test their models. Two programmes, Mode and micro1, buy licences to copies of established companies' everyday records. This page brings together what the site already publishes about that market, with dates and sources.
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AI developers already pay for business records
Public deals and court cases show that data used to train AI has a price, and the newest buyers want the everyday records of working firms.
News Corp → OpenAI
More than $250M over five years, reported by the Wall Street Journal in May 2024.
Reddit → Google
Reportedly about $60M a year for training access.
Spirit Airlines data sale (pending)
A closed airline's internal emails, chats and operations records drew a winning $10M auction bid in August 2026.
Anthropic → authors
A $1.5B copyright settlement over training data, given final court approval on 20 July 2026.
Textbook & Academic Authors Association, July 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Publisher and platform deals, one bankruptcy auction and one court settlement. Not offers, not typical amounts, and not a prediction for your company. Only the partner can value your records, in writing. Checked 30 October 2026.
The two programmes
Mode
- Mode is the buyer. The company signs with Mode and is paid by Mode. It licenses a copy of its full operating record (email, chat, files, CRM, calls, accounting, work tools); it keeps its originals and keeps operating as today.
- Published range: Mode publishes its own staff minimums and ranges on its site., indicative, not an offer.
- Mode works only with companies in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia.
- The company agrees not to sell or license the same data for external AI training for 24 months.
Choosing Mode means the same data can't go to micro1 for AI training for 24 months, so pick one partner per dataset.
The public track record
Mode
Programme launched publicly · Confirmed by partner
Mode.Inc announced BizBuyData.com, a programme that pays eligible businesses and nonprofits for historical operating records they already hold, such as internal messages, emails and project histories.
Business Wire press release (via Morningstar) (opens in a new tab), 13 October 2026
Mode tested its own records first · Partner's own claim
Mode says it found the opportunity while exploring licensing its own operating records and those of companies it acquired, and built its own de-identification tools because other vendors would not let it audit theirs.
Business Wire press release (via Morningstar) (opens in a new tab), 13 October 2026
Independent trade coverage · Reported by press
Accounting and legal trade press covered the programme. Above the Law raised that removing identifying details does not by itself resolve attorney-client privilege, which is why law firms should get their own legal advice.
Accounting Today and Above the Law, as summarised by AI Aulis (opens in a new tab), 16–17 October 2026
micro1
$1bn committed to buying company data · Reported by press
micro1 announced it will spend $1bn over 12 months buying and licensing operational data from companies, with capital provided by Citi and Hercules Capital.
The Next Web (opens in a new tab), 9 October 2026
Published process and privacy terms · Confirmed by partner
micro1 describes discovery and pricing, contracting, delivery and acceptance, and commits not to resell data until personal information is anonymised.
micro1 data partnerships page (opens in a new tab), checked 6 November 2026
Payouts to nine businesses in one day · Partner's own claim
micro1's CEO posted that the company paid $5.8M to 9 businesses for enterprise data within 24 hours. The businesses were not named and we have not been able to verify this independently.
Ali Ansari, micro1 founder and CEO, on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab), 10 September 2026
Box: enterprise AI evaluation · Different product
micro1's published case study with Box covers expert-designed evaluation data for Box's AI agents. It shows micro1 working with a listed company, but it is not a data-licensing deal.
- Neither partner has named a company that has licensed its records or published what a specific company was paid.
- Mode publishes its own staff minimums and ranges on its site.
- We will add named examples only when a partner or the company itself publishes them.
Checked 8 November 2026. All case studies
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