Lest you have any illusions, you have zero privacy at work. But AI is further encroaching on any semblance of privacy you may currently have.
Forget the prolific workplace surveillance tools, now your Slack messages with colleagues or your emails with customers could be worth millions. That’s because a burgeoning industry for mundane workplace data is seeing companies sell their workplace data to train AI agents in the next wave of this technological revolution.
In what’s become a highly competitive market, AI data brokers are so eager to get their hands on whatever workplace information they can that business owners are being inundated with six-figure offers laced with aggressive tactics to get them to sell their data, according to a new report from Business Insider. This industry is quickly evolving, as companies like OpenAi, Anthropic and Meta that are racing to build AI agents have exhausted the data grab from defunct companies and are now working with brokers to get live data from active companies, as the outlet reported.
What’s most valuable is “long-horizon” data that demonstrates how work actually gets done, as William Almeida, the chief revenue officer of Micro1 told Business Insider. The Palo Alto, California-based startup is currently offering an unlimited $50,000 referral bonus for any company that is approved for a data partnerships program where businesses can fetch anywhere from $100,000 to $2 million for their operational data.
If a company won’t sell the whole kit and caboodle—including Slack messages, customer relationship management records or its email history—then the rest of its data is rendered less valuable. Other factors, like exclusivity and a company’s field of expertise, also play a role in how much the data is worth.
But generally speaking, the more information, the better, as data is priced by the terabyte and companies with more white-collar employees will have a more valuable data corpus to sell, as Dan Novaes, CEO of Mode.Inc told Business Insider.
“Right now, the demand is just astronomical,” he said. “People need to wake up to it and take this opportunity.”
A NEW FORM OF WORKPLACE SURVEILLANCE
Taking brokers up on this opportunity may come with some downsides, however.
Workplace surveillance has become a thornier topic as such tools are increasingly commonplace, extending beyond old standbys like keyboard tracking or email monitoring. Earlier this month, a longtime remote employee in New Jersey filed a lawsuit against her former employer after she refused webcam monitoring that would photograph her every three minutes.
Of course, some employees are also upset for a variety of reasons that their day-to-day workplace interactions could be fodder for training AI to do similar work. Meta employees, who might theoretically benefit from their employer having an edge in the AI race, revolted earlier this year, forcing the tech giant to suspend a program that would have collected employee data on keystrokes and mouse movements so AI models could be trained to automate white-collar work, as Business Insider reported in September.
While sensitive information, like employees’ Social Security numbers or their home addresses, is scrubbed before the data is sold to AI companies, there’s also a risk that doesn’t happen as planned. In the case of the canceled Meta program, supposedly anonymized data like private conversations or performance records was indeed visible because of an internal leak, as Business Insider previously reported.
Following the abrupt shutdown of Spirit Airlines earlier this year, Google emerged as a curiou, player in the bankruptcy proceedings for the company’s assets. That’s because the Mountain View, California tech giant was the highest bidder, offering $10 million, for Spirit’s entire dataset of internal communications, spreadsheets, calendars, transactions, frequent flyer info, and more.
That deal recently attracted the interest of Congress, as 119 members of Congress—mostly Democrats—signed onto a letter co-written by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts last week that urged Google and Spirit to protect the privacy of former Spirit employees.
‘AN ETHICALLY GRAY AREA’
But many employees may not even realize that this sort of information is up for grabs—and there’s big money to be made from selling it.
The new market for mundane workplace interactions could spark pushback from employees as they rarely profit from—or know about—how their data is being monetized. Complicating matters further is that there are no federal privacy laws currently in place that prevent companies from collecting data from their employees for AI training, as Ifeoma Ajunwa, a law professor at Emory University, told Business Insider.
“The question is, does the consent of the employees from whom they collected that data actually extend to the sale of the data?” Ajunwa asked. “I think it’s an ethically gray area.”
