A market of AI software vendors is forming around the largest AI labs, and data startup Micro1 shows how quickly those business models are shifting. The company launched in 2022 selling an enterprise recruiting agent that interviewed hiring managers and prospected candidates. In 2024 it changed direction and began supplying training data to frontier AI labs. Today it recruits its own contract experts, including lawyers, doctors, X-ray technicians, accredited traders, financial investors and CPAs, who are paid to improve how large language models answer questions in those fields.
Micro1 is now running its first major advertising campaign. The campaign is aimed at raising the company profile with the handful of large model developers that control much of the early AI market, including Google, OpenAI, Anthropic and Microsoft. Microsoft is also an investor in the company.
Sydney Levin, director of data partnerships at Micro1, told AdExchanger that frontier labs need data that cannot be scraped or purchased easily, which is why the company pivoted toward supplying human expertise. Amber Bass, senior corporate counsel at law firm PPLSI and one of Micro1's contracted experts, reviews model answers in her field and builds rubrics that flag where responses went wrong and why each correction matters. "It's almost like explaining to a new attorney why you're making these edits for your side," Bass said.
Experts are usually left unaware of which model they are training, and Bass said anonymity likely reduces the risk of bias entering the work. Micro1 is adding mechanics, architects and sales leaders to its expert pool. "While there's few top players in frontier AI labs, the demand and the budget that they have to spend on data training is billions and billions of dollars," Levin said.
Source: AdExchanger - https://www.adexchanger.com/ai/micro1-wants-human-domain-experts-to-profit-from-ai-and-llms/