In this guide
Selling or licensing?
Most deals described as selling data to AI companies are licences. A sale hands your data over for good. A licence gives an AI lab permission to train on it under terms you approve, in return for a fee or a royalty, and you stay the owner.
Licences can also be non-exclusive, so the same data can be licensed to more than one buyer and earn more than once. That's the model Kimberlite uses.
What AI labs pay for
Labs pay for material they can't scrape from the open web: original, well-organised data with clear rights and real depth in one field. Common examples:
- Recordings. Customer calls, meetings and interviews, ideally in more than one language.
- Documents and records. Case files, workpapers, reports and contracts from closed matters.
- Code. Private codebases, with their commit history.
- Video and images. Footage and photography you shot and own.
- Operational records. Transactions, production, maintenance and inspection logs.
- Health data. De-identified patient records, imaging studies and reports.
India has a lot of what labs want: call-centre and BPO recordings, material in Indian languages and publishing archives. Dataset vendors such as Shaip already build Indian-language data for AI teams.1
What it's worth
There's no public rate card. Value depends on how much you hold, its quality, how rare it is, how clean the rights are and what buyers want right now. Market ranges for the 25 company types in our calculator run from about ₹9 lakh to ₹14 crore. A few examples:
| Company type | Market range |
|---|---|
| Law firm | ₹47L – ₹11Cr |
| Call centre or BPO | ₹19L – ₹2.4Cr |
| Software company | ₹47L – ₹4.7Cr |
| Medical practice or health system | ₹75L – ₹7.7Cr |
| Video production studio | ₹89L – ₹8.2Cr |
| Manufacturing & industrial company | ₹94L – ₹14Cr |
For scale, the largest reported deals are much bigger. News Corp's deal with OpenAI was reported to be worth more than $250 million over five years,2 and Google's deal with Reddit about $60 million a year.3 In India, OpenAI has signed deals with the Times of India and Indian Express groups to show their journalism in ChatGPT. Industry estimates put them at around ₹47 crore and ₹28 crore a year, though none of the companies has confirmed the terms, and neither announcement says the content is licensed for training.4 See every deal we track.
Is it legal in India?
Licensing data your company owns outright is generally legal. The care goes into personal data, contracts and copyright.
Personal data
India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (the DPDP Act) covers data about people who can be identified from it. Consent under the Act has to be specific to a stated purpose,5 so training AI on identifiable customer or employee data generally needs a fresh notice and fresh consent. The rules that matter here (consent, the duties of Data Fiduciaries and penalties) apply from 13 May 2027.6 The largest penalty, ₹250 crore, is for failing to keep personal data secure.5
| From | What comes into force |
|---|---|
| 13 Nov 2025 | DPDP Rules notified.7 Definitions and the Data Protection Board. |
| 13 Nov 2026 | Consent Managers. |
| 13 May 2027 | Notice and consent, Data Fiduciary duties, individuals' rights and penalties. |
Anonymised data
The Act doesn't define anonymised data. Data that genuinely can't identify anyone arguably falls outside it, but that's an interpretation rather than a written exemption, and poorly anonymised data can be re-identified. That's why Kimberlite excludes or anonymises personal data before anything is prepared for licensing.
Contracts and copyright
Client work, material licensed to you by someone else, and anything under a confidentiality agreement may not be yours to license. How copyright applies to AI training is also unsettled in India: in December 2025 DPIIT put out a working paper for consultation proposing a mandatory blanket licence, with royalties, for training AI on copyrighted work.8
This is general information, not legal advice. Have your own counsel review your situation.
How a licensing deal works
- Take stock of what you hold. List the data sets, how much there is and how far back it goes.
- Check the rights. Confirm you own each set outright, and set aside client work, third-party material and anything under a confidentiality agreement.
- Remove personal data. Exclude it, or anonymise it properly, before anything is shared.
- Prepare it to labs' standards. Consistent formats, documentation and samples buyers can review.
- Agree terms with buyers. A licence sets the permitted use, the term, whether it's exclusive, and the fee or royalty.
- Get paid. You earn a royalty each time the data is licensed.
Kimberlite does this work with you and licenses the data on your behalf, privately and on terms you approve.
Do global programmes take Indian companies?
Often not. Several of the big global programmes that pay companies for data only accept companies from the US and a few Western markets.9 Kimberlite is built for companies in India, with estimates in rupees.
Common questions
I'm in India. Can I sell my company's data to AI companies?
Yes. In practice you license it: you keep ownership, and the AI lab gets permission to train on it under agreed terms. Personal data has to be excluded or anonymised first.
Do I need my customers' consent?
Only if the data identifies them. Under the DPDP Act, identifiable personal data needs fresh, specific consent before it can be used to train AI. Data that never contained personal information doesn't, and properly anonymised data arguably falls outside the Act.
How much is my company's data worth?
It depends on volume, quality, rarity and rights. Market ranges run from about ₹9 lakh to ₹14 crore depending on the type of company. Kimberlite's calculator gives a range for 25 company types, and a 20-minute call gets you a real number.
Sources
- Shaip, Indian language datasets. Back
- The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI, WSJ owner News Corp strike content deal valued at over $250 million, May 2024. Back
- Reuters, Reddit in AI content licensing deal with Google, 22 February 2024. Back
- exchange4media, OpenAI's TOI and IE deals spark wider interest among news publishers, 23 September 2026. Industry estimates of about $5 million and $3 million a year, unconfirmed by the companies. Back
- Ministry of Electronics and IT, The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (s.6 consent; Schedule penalties). Back
- Ministry of Electronics and IT, notification G.S.R. 843(E) appointing commencement dates for the DPDP Act, 13 November 2025. Back
- Press Information Bureau, Government notifies DPDP Rules to empower citizens and protect privacy, November 2025. Back
- DPIIT, Working Paper on Generative AI and Copyright, Part 1: One Nation One License One Payment, 8 December 2025. Back
- advai, Data licensing companies (programme eligibility). Back