By Sandy Carter
Publication Date: 2026-08-23 20:52:00
Google CEO Sundar Pichai addresses GenAI in his address to developers. (Photo by Camille Cohen / AFP) (Photo by CAMILLE COHEN/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
The fast facts are that Google bid $10 million for data, beating AI training company Mercor’s $7.5 million offer, for roughly 100 million Spirit Airlines emails, 500 million Teams messages, 30 million lines of code and employee records reaching back to 1986. AI startup Micro1 lobbed in a late bid of $12.5 million after the deadline.
Micro1 is a young AI training startup, founded by CEO Ali Ansari, that matches talent and real-world data to companies building machine learning models. It submitted the late bid for Spirit’s data, topping Google’s $10 million offer, because it believes decades of real operational records are exactly what’s needed to train more capable AI models, and Ansari argued Google’s price was far too low for data that valuable.
The judge will rule on September 9, 2026.
