Some can. The test is whether the records follow finished work through every step, whether the company can grant the rights to them and whether releasing them gives a competitor anything.
Records that follow a piece of work through its steps and show how it ended.
Typical candidates are email archives, order and project files, quotes and costings, scanned folders, complaint and credit note records, inspection and maintenance records, ticket and CRM histories, technical drawings, CAD models, change requests and commissioning records.
Current designs, current prices and anything a competitor could use stay where they are. Records that belong to customers or suppliers, such as their drawings, are considered only if the company holds the rights to them and no confidentiality agreement stands in the way.
Someone who can grant the rights to the records, which usually means company management, informed by legal counsel and the data protection officer. Records that contain personal data of employees or customers raise further questions, and in some countries employee representatives have a say. The details differ by country and by company, and this page is not legal advice.
After a confidentiality and data-processing agreement, a sample is reviewed together with the company’s rights to it and its suitability for AI customers. The company then sets out scope, purposes of use, recipients and payment in writing. Records are prepared, anonymized and checked, and payment follows the milestones agreed. No file is transferred before a signed agreement is in place.
Data partnershipsThe company decides what goes out, for which purposes and to whom. A company that would rather keep its records has another route: a private model trained on them, for its own use.
A private model trained on your own recordsReplacing names, addresses and identifiers makes records safer to use, and it is one step in a review. A drawing can be confidential without naming anyone, and a customer’s design does not become the company’s to license because the customer’s name was removed. Those questions are settled in the review and in the contract.
Four things come first: which records are in scope, whether the company can grant the rights to them, whether the sample is useful to AI customers, and the terms under which they may be used and by whom. Payment can then be a one-off price or a share of what is earned from licensing, and it follows milestones agreed in writing.
A first conversation needs a description and no files: the formats, the rough volume, the years covered and the subject matter. Who holds the rights? Does the material include customer or supplier records? Does it contain personal data? Which records still give the company an edge?
Describe what you have in a few sentences.