What qualifies
Does your business have records AI labs want?
If your team has done skilled work on computers for years, probably. Here’s what buyers look for, what makes records more valuable and what stays out.
A strong fit usually has
- More than 20 employees
- Five or more years of saved digital records
- Several kinds of records: email, files and systems
- Work that takes real skill and judgment
- Clear rights to the records
01 The basics
What buyers look for first.
A team of 20 or more
Larger teams produce more varied, more connected records. Smaller teams with deep, specialized work can still be worth a conversation.
Years of saved records
Buyers look for history: several years of email, files and system records, ideally covering many clients, projects or cases.
More than one kind of record
Email plus documents plus an operating system tells a fuller story than any one source alone.
Clear rights
The records need to be yours to license. Client agreements, confidentiality duties and industry rules are reviewed first.
02 Record types
The records you already keep.
These are the systems most businesses already use. You don’t need all of them, and you don’t need to move or clean anything up to start.
Connected records are worth more.
One project followed through email, chat, files and your systems tells a story no single source can.
- 01
Email and team chat
Where work gets requested, debated and decided, including the reasoning behind each call.
- Gmail
- Outlook
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- 02
Documents and files
Proposals, contracts, procedures, reports and workpapers: the written record of how you operate.
- Google Drive
- SharePoint
- Dropbox
- Box
- 03
Projects, tickets and tasks
Work captured end to end: the brief, the steps taken, the handoffs and the finished result.
- Asana
- Jira
- Zendesk
- ServiceNow
- Practice management
- 04
Accounting and operating systems
Invoices, ledgers, orders, schedules and inventory from the systems that run the business.
- QuickBooks
- Xero
- NetSuite
- ERP exports
- 05
CRM and sales
Pipelines, quotes, pricing and renewals, plus the notes that explain why deals moved.
- Salesforce
- HubSpot
- Pipedrive
- 06
Calls and meetings
Recorded calls and transcripts: the conversations where problems get worked through.
- Zoom
- Google Meet
- Microsoft Teams
- Gong
- 07
Code and technical work
Repositories, reviews and incident notes that show how engineering decisions were made.
- GitHub
- GitLab
- Bitbucket
03 What raises value
Six things that make records worth more.
Two businesses with the same headcount can have very different records. These are the differences buyers notice.
Connected history
The same piece of work visible across email, chat, files and systems, from request to result.
Judgment you can see
Review notes, approvals, questions and corrections. The moments where an expert made a call are the most valuable part.
Depth over time
Recurring work done hundreds of times, with the variations and exceptions that came up along the way.
Specialized expertise
Work that takes training and experience to do well is harder to find, and buyers pay more for it.
Consistent structure
Records kept in the same systems and formats over the years are easier to prepare and easier for buyers to evaluate.
Breadth
Many clients, projects, products or locations give buyers a wider range of real situations to learn from.
04 What doesn’t qualify
What stays out.
Some material can’t or shouldn’t be licensed. Knowing this early saves everyone time.
- Public or scraped data, such as your website, social posts or anything already online
- Records you don’t have the rights to license, such as material owned by clients or restricted by contract
- Privileged legal communications
- Regulated information without clear permission, such as health records or tax return information
- Passwords, account numbers and other credentials (removed from anything that is licensed)
05 By industry
See what qualifies in your industry.
Each industry has its own valuable workflows and its own rules about what stays out.
Accounting & bookkeeping firms
Closes, reconciliations, review notes
Construction & engineering firms
Bids, specs, RFIs, site reports
Insurance agencies
Quotes, claims, renewals
Logistics & distribution companies
Dispatch, freight exceptions, carrier claims
Manufacturers
Work orders, quality checks, maintenance logs
E-commerce & retail brands
Sourcing, inventory planning, customer service
IT services firms & MSPs
Tickets, runbooks, incident reports
Agencies & consultancies
Briefs, proposals, client reporting
Property management companies
Leases, work orders, tenant communication
Staffing & recruiting firms
Sourcing, screening, placements
Software companies
Codebases, reviews, incident history
Professional services firms
Engagements, research, deliverables
06 Questions
Still not sure?
The estimator gives you a quick read. A conversation gives you a real one.
What kinds of businesses qualify?
Usually businesses with more than 20 employees and several years of saved digital records, such as email, documents, accounting and operating systems, CRM, tickets or call recordings. Smaller teams with deep, specialized records can still be worth a conversation.
Why would AI labs pay for ordinary business records?
Because the public internet has already been used, and what AI systems still lack is the record of real work done well: requests, back-and-forth, judgment calls and finished results. Years of email, files and system history from a working business are full of exactly that.
Am I allowed to license my business records?
Often, yes, but it depends on your client agreements, confidentiality obligations and the rules in your industry. That is why rights are reviewed before we approach buyers. Some records may need to stay out, and some businesses will not be a fit.
Do I lose ownership of my records?
No. A license grants defined, limited rights to use selected records for agreed purposes. You keep ownership of your records, your systems and your business.
How is the value determined?
Mostly by team size, years of history, the variety of record types and how well they connect, along with quality, rights and buyer demand. Our figures are partner estimates for qualifying records. Buyer interest and value are not guaranteed.