Long after the farewell cake is gone, you can still be valuable to your employer.
The digital trail that employees create at work has become a hot commodity for companies seeking it Build and train AI models – sometimes, as with Spirit Airlines, outlasting the companies that built it.
Googling won one bid war, paying $10 million for Spirit’s internal data, according to an Aug. 14 bankruptcy court filing. The treasure includes the airline’s internal documents, workflows, emails, some 500 million Teams messages and the codebase. It excludes customer data and is anonymized, Google said.
Spirit stopped flying in May after filing for bankruptcy. According to its most recent annual report, the company employed approximately 9,700 full-time employees in 2025.
For Google, the deal appears to be a bargain. For Spirit employees – and employees everywhere – this is a reminder that work emails and other workplace communications are ultimately not yours.
What changes is the value of that information and what companies can do with it. For example, the data generated during daily work can be used to train AI assistants to handle customer complaints or to help developers debug websites.
Earlier this year, AI training startup Micro1 announced a program that will offer 50 mid-sized companies between $100,000 and $2 million access to anonymized data.
Business Insider spoke to attorneys about what employees need to know about the data they generate on the job how to protect their privacy.
Ask your company
Most of the time, your digital handiwork — from the boss email you spent an hour perfecting to the funny Teams messages you sent to your best friend from work — is company property.
This data will become more valuable as demand for AI training data grows, says Jared Pope, employment lawyer and CEO of HR platform Work Shield, which manages workplace misconduct. Pope said he has spoken with CEOs and business owners who are receiving calls from companies looking to purchase their workplace data.
“It can be extremely valuable to the bottom line,” he says.
That’s one reason it may be worth asking about data retention policies when you start or leave, Pope said.
Many companies are still figuring out their AI policies.
George Socha, attorney and senior vice president of brand awareness at AI e-discovery platform Reveal, said there isn’t one standard place for companies to outline their policies around employee data and workplace surveillance.
Companies “should try to set appropriate, reasonable boundaries and then communicate them clearly to employees and make sure employees understand them,” Socha said.
However, until companies adopt stricter policies, it’s a bit of a free-for-all policy. Employers can discuss these policies during onboarding, when they introduce employees to the tools available to them and explain how to use them.
Employees can also contact HR to ask where they can find the company’s policies on employee data and workplace monitoring, Socha said.
Work chats are ‘not a diary’
It’s generally up to companies to decide whether to sell anonymized data, Pope said.
This option is a good reminder for employees to be aware of what they put on their work equipment.
“Your work email and chat aren’t actually a diary,” he said. “Suppose anything you create on an enterprise system could outlast your own job there.”
Sensitive information remains protected
Most of the sensitive personal information your employer has about you — things like Social Security numbers and other information — is likely protected by various state laws, says Vanessa Matsis-McCready, VP of HR Services and Associate General Counsel at HR firm Engage PEO.
This is the case even if your employer goes bankrupt. “The bankruptcy laws are not going to override that,” she said.
At the same time, Matsis-McCready said it’s worth taking a defensive stance when it comes to not using your work laptop, for example for personal tasks. Another reason: the possibility of data breaches.
For Pope, this is yet another reason for employees to be smart about the digital trail they create during their work.
“Be careful what you put there because it’s not going away,” he said.
