AI Labs Ignite High-Stakes Market for Corporate Slack and Email Data
A booming market for anonymized workplace data, including Slack messages and emails, is emerging as AI labs seek training material for autonomous agents. Brokers are offering six-figure deals to businesses, often with short deadlines, while annual spending on AI data is projected to rise from under $1 billion to $6.5 billion by 2027. This surge has raised ethical and security concerns, including unauthorized sales of stolen codebases and employee revolts over internal data tracking. Regulators and lawmakers are increasingly scrutinizing the lack of federal privacy protections for workers whose digital footprints are being monetized without their knowledge or consent.