Companies / AI company
Google in the AI training data market. Recorded here: 3 clauses of its contract in its own words, 12 disclosed licensing deals, 3 lawsuits and rulings, 9 public prices and 1 market record.
google.comLatest record 15 Oct 2026
What Google's contract says
The clauses Google publishes for the people it buys data from, in its own words, the costliest first. “Our reading” is ours, not Google's. These terms change: read the page itself before you sign.
Licence and use
Partners are paid for delivering content that Google uses to improve its products and services.
“Partners will be paid for the delivery of their offline content, which will be used to improve our products and services”
Our reading: The use is broad and not limited to training.
contentpilot.google.com, read 11 Oct 2026Exclusivity
Non-exclusive: you keep all your IP and may sell the same content elsewhere.
“This is a non-exclusive opportunity. You decide what you offer, keep 100% of your IP, and retain the right to monetize your content elsewhere.”
Our reading: The most seller-friendly published position of any buyer here: you can take the same data to others.
contentpilot.google.com, read 12 Oct 2026Other
By invitation; the fee is agreed with each partner.
“Upon invitation, we work with partners in an offer process where we mutually agree on a fee.”
Our reading: There is no price guidance, so your own range and any competing offer are the anchor.
contentpilot.google.com, read 12 Oct 2026
Not published: Price guidance, Licence term, Payment timing, Who de-identifies. Ask for each in writing.
Public prices involving Google
- Spirit Airlines' corporate records archive, micro1's late competing proposal after the auction (in-house de-identification)
An unsigned proposal 25% above the winning bid, filed after the auction closed; as of 14 Oct 2026 it has not displaced Google, the ombudsman wants to review micro1's plan to de-identify the data itself (Dkt. 1684), and the docket notice (ECF No. 1556) is described by a docket summary as stating no amount.
Press report, Fortune, micro1 tries to beat Google's bid to buy bankrupt Spirit Airlines data
$12.5 millionper company archive (unsigned proposal)
- Google's annual contract with Surge AI
Forbes (September 2025) via Contrary.
Press report, Contrary Research, Surge AI memo (updated 1 September 2026)
more than $100 million per yearper year
- Spirit Airlines' de-identified internal records (Microsoft 365 email, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, employee records), Google's opening auction bid
Opening bid at the 14 Aug 2026 auction, with third-party de-identification paid by the buyer. Google later won at $10.0M, so competition doubled the opening price in about two and a half hours.
Court record, Chapter11Cases, Spirit Airlines deidentified data sale (summary of Dkt. 1463, 1470, 1556)
$5 million in cashper archive (opening bid)
- Spirit Airlines' de-identified enterprise data (email, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, CRM, revenue management, workflow data), Google's successful bid under the signed sale agreement
Winning auction bid of 14 Aug 2026; the buyer pays all de-identification costs on top and pays the price only on delivery of de-identified data. Court approval is still pending: the sale hearing was adjourned from 14 Oct to 6 Nov 2026 (Dkt. 1695, 1703), and the 5 Oct narrowing of scope left the $10M unchanged.
Ten Million U.S. Dollars ($10,000,000.00)per company archive (aggregate purchase price)
- Spirit Airlines' de-identified enterprise data, Mercor's alternate bid under its signed alternate sale agreement
The losing backup bid behind Google's $10M, on the same terms (buyer pays de-identification, no price reduction); it becomes the sale only if Google fails to close. The privacy ombudsman asked to investigate Mercor's early-2026 security incident before it could be treated as a qualified buyer (Dkt. 1684). Source moved from press to the docket.
Court record, In re Spirit Aviation Holdings, No. 25-11897 (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.), Dkt. 1463, Exhibit B (Alternate Sale Agreement, Mercor.io)
Seven Million Five Hundred Thousand U.S. Dollars ($7,500,000.00)per company archive (alternate bid)
- Google's planned 2025 spend with Scale AI for human-labeled training data
Scale's largest customer at the time; Google planned to cut ties after Meta took 49% of Scale.
Press report, TechCrunch (citing Reuters)
$200 million this yearper year (2025, planned)
- Most unused creator footage made for YouTube, Instagram and TikTok
The ordinary band inside Bloomberg's $1 to $4 range; 4K, drone and 3D animation fetch more. Buyers named were OpenAI, Google and Moonvalley.
Press report, Slashdot, quoting Bloomberg, YouTubers are selling their unused video footage to AI companies
between $1 and $2 per minuteper minute
- Reddit's user posts licensed to Google for AI training and access (2024 deal)
A reported figure the parties have not confirmed. Reddit's own IPO filing disclosed $203.0 million of aggregate contract value across its January 2024 data licences, over two to three years.
Press report, LLM Pulse, AI content licensing deals 2023 to 2026
a reported 60 million a yearper year
- Rural Indian speakers recording speech data for Karya (supplier to Microsoft and Google)
Worker pay, well above the Indian minimum wage; workers also keep a share of the data for royalties.
Press report, Context (Thomson Reuters Foundation)
about $5 an hourper hour (paid to the speaker)
Licensing deals
- Oct 2026Paid; no amounts or contract lengths stated
- Oct 2026CNN to GoogleFinancial terms not disclosed; multiyear
Not stated
- Oct 2026Not disclosed
- Aug 2026$10M
- Apr 2026Folha de S.Paulo to GoogleNot disclosed
Shown in answers
- Dec 2025Direct payments; amounts not disclosed
- Jan 2025The Associated Press to GoogleNot disclosed
Shown in answers
- Jan 2025Deals often worth thousands of dollars
- Apr 2024$25 million to $50 million each initially; most later expanded
- Apr 2024Rates vary by buyer and content type
- Feb 2024Stack Overflow to GoogleFinancial terms not discussed
Shown in answers
- Feb 2024Reddit to Google$60M a year
Training and answers
Lawsuits, rulings and regulators
- Jul 2026Hachette, Cengage, Elsevier and Scott Turow v. Google: Gemini training class action
Complaint filed; allegations not adjudicated.
- Apr 2025Like Company v. Google Ireland (C-250/25): first AI copyright reference to the CJEU
Pending before the CJEU.
- Sep 2024Irish DPC: inquiry into Google's PaLM 2 training
Inquiry opened; no outcome found.
In the brokerage market
Aug 2026, transaction
$10,000,000
Google opened at $5 million cash, with a third-party de-identification process paid for by the buyer. Sale not approved as of the docket review through 11 Sep 2026 (later status: see the 5 Oct 2026 ombudsman record).
Research Suite by Stretto (chapter11cases.com), docket summary, 13 Sep 2026
Cited in these 6 guides
- Which AI Data Buyers Take Holders Outside the US?
- How Do AI Companies Get Their Training Data?
- How Much Is Your Company's Data Worth to AI Companies?
- AI Licensing Deals With News Publishers: Every Disclosed Price
- Reddit's AI Data Deals: What Google and OpenAI Pay
- How to Sell Your Codebase to AI Companies (and What It's Worth)
Cite this
AIData.Broker, “Google in the AI training data market”, reviewed 15 Oct 2026. https://aidata.markets/companies/google
Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 if you credit AIData.Broker and link to this page. Each row names the publication that stated it, and words quoted from a source keep that source's own terms.