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AI companies have already scraped much of the web. Now they're chasing something even more valuable: data that shows how humans actually work.
That's the focus of Business Insider's new series, The AI Data Grab. This week, we published three stories showing how the race for workplace data is accelerating.
One piece, from Charles Rollet, Tom Carter, and Stephen Council, examines the booming market for company records. AI firms are offering businesses six- and even seven-figure sums for anonymized Slack messages, emails, presentations, and internal documents.
The goal is to teach AI systems how people solve problems, collaborate, make decisions, and complete long, multi-step tasks. Those real-world workflows are becoming the fuel for the next generation of AI agents.
Another story, from Melia Robinson, explores how law firms are building AI systems around decades of legal knowledge, turning their own experience into a competitive advantage rather than relying solely on off-the-shelf AI models and tools.
A third piece, by Rya Jetha, reveals how AI companies pay people to record real-world work, such as cooking dinners and packing warehouses, to teach robots how humans perform everyday physical tasks.
Together, these stories point to a major shift in AI development. The first wave of generative AI was mostly about bigger models and faster chips. The next chapter is about machines understanding how work gets done, so AI can help us do it better and quicker.
Sign up for the AI Insider newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com
Cada vez que alguien abre un grifo de agua, la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) está detrás de ese gesto: establece las normas que garantizan su calidad. “También está detrás de la definición de qué tiene que llevar una crema para protegerte de los rayos ultravioletas”, asegura María Neira (La Felguera, Asturias, 64 años), la española que aspira a dirigir la OMS, para explicar el impacto en la vida cotidiana de una institución que pasa por horas bajas después de la retirada de la financiación de Estados Unidos y el desplome de su autoridad.
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Meta said Sunday that its systems suspended the No Kings movement's Instagram account during its day of action because it detected "intense" activity by a Claude tool.
The account was locked and administrators were denied access for "several hours" during nationwide rallies on Saturday to mobilize early voting in the midterms, the group said.
Meta initially said that an automatic trigger was responsible for shutting down the account "in error," but offered a fuller explanation a day later.
"Our engineering team discovered that the spike that triggered the incorrect enforcement was primarily in the account's 'reading' behavior," spokesperson Andy Stone said in an X post.
"Specifically, our network security systems detected the use of a Claude tool reading profiles, posts, and hashtags, the rate of which sharply increased (~4x volume) in intense bursts on October 17. "
Stone said the activity resembled bot traffic, prompting the system to take the account offline.
"An automated re-review of the removal action an hour later recognized that shouldn't have happened and restored the account. It unfortunately took additional time for us to straighten out the situation with admin access to the IG account.
"We want to reiterate our sincere apology for the error," he wrote.
The No Kings network, which bills itself as nonpartisan but arose last year in response to President Donald Trump's actions, said it held nearly 3,000 rallies across the country to encourage voters to cast their ballots early as a hedge against any effort to undermine turnout.
"Restricting communications about voting in the middle of an election is unacceptable," it said.
"Meta must answer for this suspension and take immediate steps to ensure it never happens again — to any account, but especially those working to inform voters and encourage participation in our democracy."
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut called for an investigation into the shutdown, saying on Sunday evening that even if it was made in error, the incident was a "total indictment of Meta's outsized influence on our culture and politics."
"If it wasn't malevolence, it was likely a natural consequence of a company that is desperate to get as close to Trump as possible (and thus has a disincentive to do the basic, proactive work to be ready to support users on No Kings Day)," he wrote in a post on X.
The senator, who has advocated for stricter regulation and anti-monopoly laws against Big Tech, said Meta's significant share of the political discourse market comes with a responsibility for it to be ready for "major moments of political action."
October 18, 2026: This story was updated with public comment from Sen. Chris Murphy.
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