Why Google's purchase of Spirit Airlines data matters

Google's acquisition of Spirit Airlines data for $10 million could be a punchline or a template for future deals for companies looking to develop industry specific models. Bet on the latter.

First the punchline. Google is going to train its models on data from a poorly run airline that liquidated in bankruptcy.

Granted, Spirit wasn't exactly the picture perfect airline, but its data at the very least would show a model what not to do. And Spirit did have a knack for being disruptive from time to time.

The reality is that Google can now train multiple models on demand generation trends, customer behavior as well as operations for AI agents focused on airlines or customer support. Given that frontier models and their offspring have already exhausted all the data available, proprietary data sets are going to garner a premium.

Google's purchase also validates the strategy of enterprises that want to train their own models using their data.

Personally identifiable and privileged data wasn't included in Google's purchase. A Sept. 9 hearing to approve the Google sale has been delayed by the US bankruptcy court. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and AFL-CIO are opposed to the sale.

The data acquired by Google includes:

• Productivity and collaboration data from email, calendar, chat, collaboration and messaging.
• Documents, presentations, spreadsheets, knowledge repositories and wikis).
• Core business systems and business applications data including employee behavior and productivity data, revenue and yield management and aircraft operations and logistics.
• Workflow and process data from content and demand generation, support, HR and legacy operations, strategy and project management.
• Transaction data and accounting workflows.
• APIs, custom apps, architecture, software models, plugins and documentation.

The bet is that we're going to see similar deals ahead as conditions warrant. Industry and enterprise focused data is valuable for customizing models. The other twist worth noting that these data purchases could create AI agents that are better operators. Book smart would be a phrase used to describe most LLMs.

In many cases, LLMs are the PhD without common sense.

Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller said we're likely to see similar data deals going forward. Mueller said:

"LLM vendors have done all they can do with publicly available information, and the focus now shifting to the enterprise.

There is a lack of data from the enterprise… and that is clear challenge as that data is not for sale. The Spirit Airlines bankruptcy opens the opportunity to get an insight into the data and Google gets the first glimpse into the inner working of an airline. That is of tremendous value to understand the processes and interactions in the enterprise – and then train models based on that.

It's unclear how insightful a struggling airline is for the mainstream business, but the lesson is that data is an asset and can be monetized as needed. Ten million dollars would not have saved Spirit Airlines, but it is a warning for the customers of struggling consumer companies, as we have seen with 23andme in the past. CxOs and consumers need to be aware."