Spirit’s bankrupt, but its data is flying high after US$10m Google deal

Google has acquired a substantial amount of data from bankrupt US budget airline Spirit Airlines for $10 million (RM42.3 million) to aid in the training of its artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The data, which includes around 100 million emails and 500 million conversations on Microsoft’s Teams messaging platform, as well as software and pricing information, was auctioned off following Spirit's second bankruptcy filing in less than a year due to soaring jet fuel prices.

Google stated that all personally identifiable information would be removed by a third party before the data was handed over, and that the dataset could be useful in improving its products and AI models. The purchase comes as AI companies increasingly seek to acquire internal corporate communications data, including from failed startups, to train their systems.

Brief written by urgent.news from Malay Mail's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.