Google Acquires Data of Bankrupt U.S. Airline to Train AI on Corporate Workflows

Google has acquired the internal data of Spirit Airlines, a low-cost carrier that went bankrupt in May, for a substantial sum.

According to documents submitted to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York on the 17th (local time), Google submitted the highest bid of $10 million (approximately 14.1 billion won) in Spirit Airlines' data auction held on the 14th, and was selected as the final winning bidder.

Mercor, a competing AI data firm, offered $7.5 million, becoming the preliminary winning bidder.

The data Google is purchasing through this auction includes system data accumulated during Spirit Airlines' internal business operations and development processes, as well as communication records between executives and employees.

This also includes about 100 million emails, 500 million internal messenger chat logs from platforms like Microsoft Teams, internal documents, meeting materials, and 30 million lines of programming code.

However, customer information, credit card payment details, and legally privileged information were excluded.

Google plans to use this data to enhance the performance of its artificial intelligence (AI) models.

However, Google will only be able to access the acquired data after having an external agency completely remove any personally identifiable information.

The court is scheduled to hold a hearing on the 19th to decide whether to give final approval to Spirit Airlines' asset sale.

As the development direction of AI models recently shifts from simple question-and-answer chatbots to agents that perform tasks autonomously without human intervention, demand for internal corporate business data is growing.

This is to allow AI to learn how working-level employees communicate and collaborate during actual corporate operations.

Spirit Airlines went bankrupt in May due to accumulated debt and high fuel prices, laying off approximately 17,000 employees and completely halting operations.

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.