A buyer may pay a living company for evaluation work built on its daily tasks instead of buying its records: price the two separately
The Information (29 Jul 2026) reports that micro1 approached the CEO of a 14-person HVAC firm in Troy, Michigan, who now designs tasks from his own job (processing vendor invoices, credit applications, payroll) and ranks how anonymised AI models handle them; its headline says data labeling startups are paying HVAC companies $150,000 for data. The readable part does not say how much of the money is for records and how much for the evaluation work, or over what period.
Dated 29 Jul 2026Source checked 29 Oct 2026Page out of reach at the last check, 8 Nov 2026Basis: indicative
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“Now, micro1 wanted Hogle to test how well different AI models did on tasks involving his day job, such as processing vendor invoices, filling out credit applications or doing payroll for the HVAC firm’s 14 employees.”
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