Google Buys Spirit Data for $10M

Google has agreed to pay $10 million for a trove of business data from the now-defunct Spirit Airlines, according to a report from Bloomberg Law. The tech giant will acquire millions of emails and Microsoft Teams chats, software code, and data related to revenue, operations, productivity, and other areas, the legal news outlet said. Google has said it will use the data to improve its artificial intelligence. “We acquired part of an enterprise dataset from Spirit Airlines, which can be helpful in improving our products and AI models,” the company said in a statement to Bloomberg Law. All personal information will be scrubbed from the records before they are transferred to Google. Google beat out a competing $7.5 million offer from AI startup Mercor. The company has been designated as a potential backup if Google’s deal falls apart for some reason. Spirit went out of business in May as spiraling fuel costs undermined its long-term bankruptcy recovery plan. About 17,000 workers were let go, but a small core of employees have remained to oversee the liquidation of the carrier’s assets, including aircraft, airport gates, real estate, and equipment. The airline’s former headquarters in Dania Beach, Florida, was just recently sold to an affiliate of a Boston-based investment firm.