Google buys crashed airline Spirit's data at auction, because AI
Google has purchased a massive dataset from the liquidated airline Spirit for $10 million to train its AI models. The data includes millions of emails, customer service records, and operational logs, highlighting the growing demand for specialized data in AI development.
Why it matters
This acquisition underscores the high market value of proprietary data for training large language models and the trend of using specific industry knowledge to improve AI performance.
$10 million buys over 100 million emails, 30 million recorded phone calls, reams of stuff from Teams, Oracle, and SAP
Simon Sharwood Simon Sharwood APAC Editor APAC Editor Published tue 18 Aug 2026 // 07:43 UTC Google has acquired the data of failed US airline Spirit.
Spirit hit financial turbulence when COVID-19 blew in during 2020 and started making losses. Its balance sheet never climbed back to a safe altitude and in May 2026 the airline grounded itself permanently.
The low-cost carrier entered liquidation to wind itself up and is now auctioning assets to raise cash and settle at least some of its debts.
A court document [PDF] filed last week reveals that one of the assets up for sale is a huge trove of deidentified data, which Google bid for and won for just $10 million.
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