# Who buys AI agent session data

> The buyers of AI coding agent sessions - AI labs, data vendors and developer-tool companies - what each wants, and what they have paid in 2025 and 2026.

Source: https://groundedby.com/guides/who-buys-agent-session-data (updated 2026-10-29)

Three kinds of buyer pay for agent session data, and they want different things.

## AI labs, through data vendors

Labs train agents to do multi-step work, and they need examples of that work: a person with a goal, an agent acting, errors and fixes. They mostly buy through vendors that recruit people and package the data.

Known prices in 2025 and 2026:

| Buyer or vendor | What they paid for | Price |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mercor (for an unnamed AI lab) | A recorded ~50-turn coding session on your own project | $500, then $200, per accepted session (Oct 2026) |
| Snorkel AI (for Anthropic) | About an hour comparing Claude Code outputs | $280 per task (reported June 2026) |
| HUD DataVendor | Tasks and environments for agent training | Typically $500 - $1,500 per task |
| micro1 | Company operating data, including agent trajectories | $200k - $2M+ per deal (company data) |

Labs also spend heavily on training environments. In September 2025 The Information reported that Anthropic's leaders had discussed spending more than $1 billion on them over a year.

The catch for individuals: most of this money pays for **commissioned work**, where the vendor sets the task and reviews the result. Passive history from your laptop is a newer and less proven product.

## Data vendors and brokers

Between labs and people sits a growing layer of vendors buying data in bulk: codebases, ticket histories, Slack archives from shut-down startups. In August 2026 The Information reported startups selling old Slack threads and tickets to AI buyers. Individual sessions are a small part of this market so far.

## Developer-tool companies

This buyer is newer and, for session data, possibly the best fit. Agents now pick, install and configure developer tools on a person's behalf. A database, analytics or deployment company sees the API calls its servers receive, and nothing of what came before:

- which docs page the agent read, and whether it understood it;
- which command it tried first, and the error it hit;
- why it chose this product over another, or gave up.

Sessions answer those questions, and the company can verify each one against its own server logs. groundedby's [waitlist](/#waitlist) has a side for these companies.

## What this means for your history

- The proven market pays for **specific, commissioned** sessions.
- Buyers ask for **long sessions of real work** with tools. [What makes a session valuable](/guides/what-makes-a-session-valuable).
- Your history is most useful where it shows **a product or domain** a buyer cares about.

## Questions

**Do AI labs buy sessions directly from developers?**

Rarely. Labs mostly buy through data vendors such as Mercor, Snorkel AI, Scale AI and Surge AI, which recruit developers and deliver the data.

**Why would a developer-tool company want sessions?**

Agents now choose and set up developer tools on a person's behalf. A company sees the API calls its servers receive, but not what the agent tried, read and decided before them.

## Sources

- [Mercor, "Share Your AI Coding Sessions" posting (archived Oct 8, 2026)](https://web.archive.org/web/20261008012525/https://work.mercor.com/jobs/list_AAABoRiaKGOq5ceLrrpLR6zE/builders-developers-share-your-ai-coding-sessions)
- [Business Insider, Snorkel AI contractors improving Claude Code (June 1, 2026)](https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-improve-claude-code-snorkel-data-training-contractors-2026-6)
- [TechCrunch, Silicon Valley bets big on environments to train AI agents (Sept 21, 2025)](https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/21/silicon-valley-bets-big-on-environments-to-train-ai-agents/)
- [The Information, startups find old Slack threads and tickets suddenly in high demand (Aug 13, 2026)](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/startups-find-old-slack-threads-tickets-suddenly-high-demand)
- [HUD DataVendor, what you can sell](https://docs.datavendor.ai/sell/what-you-can-sell.md)
- [micro1, data partnerships](https://www.micro1.ai/data-partnerships)