[Digital Today reporter Choi Jae-won] As AI companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta move to develop AI agents that automate white-collar work, the value of companies' internal work records is surging. As employees' emails, messenger conversations and work documents are traded as AI training data, disputes over personal data protection are also growing.

Business Insider reported on Oct. 13 local time that AI data brokers are buying work records not only from shuttered startups but also from companies still in operation. Some firms were also presented with offers worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that required a decision on whether to accept within 48 hours.

Key targets for deals include Slack conversations, emails, customer management records, presentation materials and source code. These records include employees' decision-making and problem-solving processes and can be used to train AI agents that perform complex office tasks.

Market research firm Gartner forecast that global spending on data for AI will increase to $6.48 billion in 2027 from $826 million in 2025. AI training company Micro1 also plans to invest $1 billion over the next 12 months to secure corporate data.

The issue is employee consent and personal data protection. Brokers say they remove sensitive information such as social security numbers equivalent to resident registration numbers and addresses, but in some cases employees do not know their work records are being sold to outside parties.

Meta sought to use employees' keystrokes and mouse movements for AI training. It halted the project after it emerged that anonymised data included private conversations and performance review records.

Google's plan to buy past data from Spirit Airlines is also being delayed due to concerns about the use of employees' personal information.

Ifeoma Ajunwa (이페오마 아준와), a law professor at Emory University, pointed out that "it is ethically unclear whether consent to collect employee data permits external sales as well."

As AI training data emerges as a new revenue source, a new conflict is forming between companies' authority to dispose of data and employees' personal data protection.