Google acquires Spirit Airlines business data for $10 million for AI training

Aug 18, 2026

Google LLC has acquired the internal business data of defunct Spirit Airlines Inc. for $10 million in a bankruptcy auction to train its AI models. The dataset contains 100 million emails and 500 million Teams chats but excludes passenger profiles and loyalty records. To address privacy concerns, a third party will scrub all personally identifiable information before Google receives the data. This acquisition highlights a growing market where AI firms purchase bankrupt companies' data amid a shortage of free online training materials.

Google Spirit Airlines acquisition

▪The acquired Spirit Airlines Inc. dataset includes 100 million company emails, 500 million Microsoft Teams chats, 30 million lines of code, software algorithms, development metadata, and operational records.
▪Google LLC plans to use the acquired Spirit Airlines Inc. business data to train and improve its artificial intelligence products and models.
▪Alphabet Inc.'s Google LLC won a $10 million bankruptcy auction in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to acquire internal business data from the defunct Spirit Airlines Inc.
▪Google LLC outbid competitors, including the artificial intelligence training data company Mercor.io Corp., to acquire the Spirit Airlines Inc. dataset.

AI training data scarcity

▪Artificial intelligence developers such as Google LLC, OpenAI Group PBC, and Anthropic PBC have used most of the world's free online information, leading to concerns that fresh data is running out.
▪Proprietary business data has become highly sought after by artificial intelligence companies seeking to develop more powerful models that can outperform humans.

Bankruptcy data auction market

▪The artificial intelligence training data company Mercor.io Corp. has offered professionals cash in exchange for materials from their former employers to extract industry-specific knowledge.
▪A nascent market has emerged where failed startups sell off internal emails, Slack messages, and operational data to artificial intelligence firms to extract remaining value from bankrupt businesses.

Privacy protections

▪A Google spokesperson stated that Google will not receive any personal information from the acquired Spirit Airlines Inc. dataset.
▪Google LLC stated that a third-party service provider will rigorously scrub the acquired Spirit Airlines Inc. dataset of all personally identifiable information before Google receives it.
▪Google LLC was not granted access to Spirit Airlines Inc.'s 97.5 million passenger profiles or its 50 million loyalty program records.