Guides
The business data and AI glossary: 30 terms explained
This glossary explains, in plain English, 30 words you will hear when an AI firm offers to pay for your business records. The two you will hear most: a company data partnership, a deal where an AI firm pays to license copies of your work records, and the AI data payout, the money your business gets for it.1,2,3
How to use this glossary
Buyers and brokers each use their own words for the same things. micro1 says Company Data Partnerships, Handshake says AI data partnerships, Ventra says license, not a sale. This list puts them in one place, in plain words, so you can follow the first call without nodding along.1,4,5
Contract words get a plain meaning here, not a legal one. What a word means in your own contract is a question for the licensing company before you sign. Each term below links to a longer guide where we have one.6
The terms, A to Z
- AI agent
- Software that carries out a whole task, such as answering a supplier or closing a ticket, rather than just answering a question.7
- AI data broker
- A middleman that connects a business with a buyer of its data and is paid a fee, usually by the buyer when a deal closes. Most company data advertisers are brokers.8,9
- AI data payout
- The money a business receives for licensing its internal records to an AI company or data buyer, before any broker's or marketplace's fee. Published ranges for an operating company mostly run $100K to $2M, the buyers' own claims.3,10,11
- AI lab
- A company that builds large AI models, such as Google, OpenAI, Anthropic or Meta. Labs are usually the final users of licensed business data.12
- Anonymization
- Removing the link between data and the people in it. Some writers use it to mean the same as de-identification; others only for removal that cannot be undone.13
- Company data partnership
- A deal in which an AI company or data buyer pays a business to license copies of its work records to train or test AI, while the business keeps its originals and its company. micro1 runs a program by this name.1,2
- Consumer privacy ombudsman
- An independent person appointed in some bankruptcy sales of personal data to look at privacy. Spirit Airlines' data sale has one.14
- Data license
- The agreement that lets a buyer use a copy of certain records on agreed terms, while the business keeps the originals.2
- Data licensing for small business
- Our umbrella term for licensing copies of a small or mid-sized business's everyday work records to AI data buyers for a fee.15
- Data manifest
- A list of the records a business has: which systems, how many years, roughly how big. micro1 says building one takes 1-3 hours.16
- Data marketplace
- A website that lists datasets for any buyer to find. Datarade takes a 30%, 20% or 15% commission depending on the seller's plan.17
- De-identification
- Any process that removes the link between data and the people it is about, such as deleting names or swapping them for codes.18
- Exclusive license
- In these offers, a license where the buyer asks you not to license the same records to anyone else, for a period or forever. Polyshares says its licenses are exclusive by default.19
- Indirect identifier
- A detail, like a birthday or ZIP code, that does not name someone by itself but can identify them when combined with other details.20
- Instant Form
- A lead form built into Facebook or Instagram. Most company data ads open one instead of a website.21
- Irrevocable
- Plain meaning: cannot be cancelled. micro1's data license terms use the word.6
- Non-exclusive license
- In these offers, a license that leaves you free to license the same records to other buyers too. micro1's license is non-exclusive.6
- Operational data
- The everyday records a business creates while it works: email, chat, tickets, job notes, SOPs. Sunset's founder compares it to wood shavings nobody thought had value.15,22
- Perpetual
- Plain meaning: never ends. micro1's license is perpetual; Troveo says its exclusivity is time-limited.6,23
- PII
- Personally identifiable information: names, emails, phone numbers, account numbers and other details that point to a person. Buyers say they remove or swap it.24,25
- Pseudonymization
- Swapping names for codes, so records about the same person still link together but do not show who it is. Nyne's ads say client names become codes.18,25
- Re-identification
- Working out who someone is from data that was meant to be cleaned. One study found 99.98% of Americans could be re-identified from 15 traits.26
- Referral fee
- Money paid to whoever introduces a business to a buyer. micro1's referral page says up to $50K per company.27
- RL environment
- A reinforcement learning environment: a practice world that copies real software, where an AI agent tries tasks and is rewarded when it succeeds.7
- SOC 2 Type II
- A report from an outside auditor on how a company protects data over a period of time. Mercor says it holds one.29
- Sublicense
- Plain meaning: the buyer passes the data on to another company. micro1's license terms say its license is sublicensable.6
- Success fee
- A broker's cut taken from your payout only if a deal closes. Jottings says its success fees are typically 20-30%.30
- Synthetic data
- Made-up data generated to look real. AI labs hit its limits: it carries errors, such as dates that do not exist.31
- Token
- A word or piece of a word, the unit AI training is counted in. Epoch AI estimates about 300 trillion tokens of usable public text exist.32
Pros and cons
Pros
What it means for a business like yours
Keep this page open on the first call. When a broker says partnership, ask: is it a license, is it exclusive, is it perpetual, and can you sublicense it? When a buyer says anonymized, ask: by what method, and do we see a sample first?6,2
And when someone quotes a number, ask whether it is the AI data payout before or after their fee. Some brokers take nothing from you; Jottings takes typically 20-30%.9,30
Should your business get in now?
Many businesses like yours are already licensing their records to these firms. micro1 has committed $1B over 12 months to buying company data. At least 18 brokers started advertising for business data between September and mid-October 2026. SimpleClosure has done over 150 data deals, and Google bid $10M for Spirit Airlines' archive, though the court has not ruled on that sale yet.35,8,36,37
Buyers also publish deals by industry. Polyshares, for example, lists a $110,000 license for a marketing agency. That is its own claim, like every payout a buyer or broker publishes about itself.38
Our view, not a promise: the money will not be around forever. AI labs are racing to buy now, budgets are concentrated in today's build-out, and as more businesses sell, prices tend to come down. There is no deadline, but waiting has a cost.35,39
It is not for everyone
Think twice if any of these sound like you:
- Most of your records are client files you hold in confidence.40
- Your team would feel their messages were sold out from under them.41
- Your data is regulated or sensitive, which buyers ask about up front.42
- Your archive is small: most buyers want 20-30+ staff and a few years of records.43,44,45,46
- You cannot spare the weeks a deal takes.47,48,49
- You are not comfortable losing control of how a licensed copy is used.6
Next step
Take the quiz to see which firms fit your business. Then talk to the brokerages: they can answer the questions unique to your business. Legal questions go to the licensing companies.
FAQ
Questions, answered with sources
Not always. Some writers use the words interchangeably; others use anonymized only for removal that cannot be reversed. NIST avoids the word anonymization for that reason.13
A list of the records a business holds, by system and years. micro1 says building one takes 1-3 hours.16
A practice world that copies real software, where an AI agent tries a task and is rewarded when it succeeds. RL stands for reinforcement learning.7
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
Before you sign
Legal questions go to the licensing company
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company before you sign: their team reviews these with you.
Questions for this kind of business
- Do customer, vendor or platform contracts, NDAs or API terms restrict this?
Questions for any buyer
- Is the license exclusive, and for how long?
- Can you sublicense the data, and to whom?
- Which AI labs will receive it, and will you tell us?
- How long do you keep it, and how is it deleted?
- What is your liability cap, and who indemnifies whom?
- Will the contract ban re-identification of people in the data?
- Who removes personal data, by what method, and do we approve it first?