Micro1 outbids Google for Spirit data with 25% premium

Spirit Airlines' bankruptcy has turned its internal records into a contested asset. Google initially sought to buy the archive, but its proposed purchase drew objections from unions and privacy advocates concerned about sensitive personal information of former employees and customers. Google has since offered to narrow the personal data included in the sale, and its lawyers said the de-identified data would be used to train AI models. Now Micro1, a startup that began by helping companies hire engineers and moved into supplying training data in early 2025, has entered with a higher bid and its own privacy commitments. The court-appointed ombudsman, Lucy Thomson, said she needs more time to investigate Micro1 if the court considers it as buyer. A hearing is set for Sept. 16.

The competition reflects a broader shift in how AI companies source training material. Public text is finite — a 2025 Epoch AI report projected available public human-generated text could be fully used before 2030 — so AI labs are turning to private, operational records. Such data shows how work actually unfolds, which is useful for training AI agents that need to choose actions and recover from mistakes. Micro1 says it has completed more than 50 data transactions in the preceding 45 days, and its website advertises payments of $100,000 to more than $2 million for approved data packages. SimpleClosure, which helps startups sell assets, said its number of AI buyers grew ninefold compared with 2025.

The outcome hinges on whether the bankruptcy court accepts Micro1's privacy protections — excluding sensitive employment material, storing records in the U.S., destroying raw employment records after processing, and giving an independent reviewer a 1% sample — over Google's narrower-data offer. For Spirit's former employees and customers, the stakes are whether their information is properly de-identified before any transfer. The pilots' union argues some safety records should remain confidential even then.