Key takeaways
- A Microsoft 365 subscription holds five kinds of records that AI buyers want: Outlook email and calendars, Teams chat, SharePoint documents, OneDrive working files and Teams meeting recordings, each with its own page here.
- The Microsoft 365 admin center shows usage under Reports > Usage for the last 7, 30, 90 or 180 days, and each app uses its own unit: GB for mailboxes and files, messages for Teams, and hours (estimated) for recordings.
- Most exports run through Microsoft Purview eDiscovery, where packages must be downloaded within 14 days and an export that runs more than seven days is cancelled.
- Teams recordings expire after 120 days and a departed person's OneDrive is kept for 30 days by default, so those are the first records to secure.
01
What Microsoft 365 data does a company hold, and why do AI labs and data vendors buy it?
The short answer
A Microsoft 365 subscription holds five kinds of business records: email and calendars in Outlook, chat in Microsoft Teams, shared documents in SharePoint, personal working files in OneDrive, and recordings of Teams meetings. AI labs (companies that build and train AI models) and data vendors (companies that anonymize business records and package them for those labs) buy copies of them because together they show a piece of work from the first request to the final result.
One subscription, five sets of records
Microsoft 365 is Microsoft's subscription bundle of workplace apps, and a company's tenant is its own private area inside it. Every person, mailbox, team and file the company has lives in that tenant, and one admin center shows all of it. Each app keeps a different kind of record, and each has its own page here.
- Outlook
- The company's email and calendars, which record who asked whom for what, how the other side replied and when meetings were arranged.
- Microsoft Teams
- The chats and channel conversations in which colleagues coordinate their work, with replies, mentions and reactions tied to the team and the time.
- SharePoint
- The team websites where documents such as policies, procedures, contracts and project files are kept together, along with every earlier version of each file.
- OneDrive
- Each employee's own file storage, holding drafts, trackers, reports and saved attachments that never reached a shared site.
- Teams meeting recordings
- The video files and written transcripts of meetings that people recorded, saved in OneDrive and SharePoint.
Why the five together are worth more than any one
An AI model learns by studying a very large number of examples and finding the patterns in them, and those examples are called training data. A single app shows one side of a job. Email shows the request, chat shows the coordination, files show the work product and recordings show the discussion.
Because all five sit in one tenant, a data vendor can follow a customer matter or a project across them. Why AI companies want your data explains why labs pay for records that show a whole job.
How Microsoft 365 fits into a dataset
Microsoft 365 records are priced as part of a whole dataset, not app by app. micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to, pays them $100K to $2M or more per dataset, and the figure depends on the years of history and how completely the records show each job.
You decide which of the five go into the dataset. What your data is worth explains how the pieces add up.
02
Where does Microsoft 365 show how much data you have?
The short answer
The Microsoft 365 admin center shows usage for each app under Reports > Usage, and each app is measured in its own unit: gigabytes for mailboxes and files, messages for Teams chat, and no report at all for recorded hours. Admins with a usage-report role such as Reports Reader open them, and the reports cover the last 7, 30, 90 or 180 days.
How to open the usage reports
The steps below lead to every usage report in the tenant, as Microsoft's usage reports overview explains.
- Open the Microsoft 365 admin center and sign in as an admin whose role allows usage reports.
- Choose Reports > Usage from the left menu, using Show all to expand the menu if Reports is missing.
- On the activity card for an app, such as OneDrive, select View more. The report page for that app offers its different reports as tabs.
- Select Export on a report to download its table as a CSV file.
New reports usually appear within 24 to 72 hours and can sometimes take several days. By default, reports hide user names, and a Global Administrator can show them under Settings > Org Settings > Services > Reports.
Which report gives which total
Each app has its own report, unit and page. The table shows where to look and which page walks through the details.
| App | Unit to report | Where the total is |
|---|---|---|
| Outlook | GB | Reports > Usage > Exchange > Mailbox usage |
| Microsoft Teams | Messages | Reports > Usage > Microsoft Teams > User activity |
| SharePoint | GB | Active sites in the SharePoint admin center, and Reports > Usage > SharePoint > Storage |
| OneDrive | GB | Reports > Usage > OneDrive > Usage |
| Teams meeting recordings | Hours | No report; estimate from the size of MP4 files found by an eDiscovery search |
Who can open the reports
Microsoft lets these roles view usage reports: Global Administrator, Exchange Administrator, SharePoint Administrator, Teams Administrator, Teams Communications Administrator and Reports Reader, plus a few others listed in the overview. Microsoft recommends the role with the fewest permissions that does the job, so a Reports Reader is usually the better choice than a Global Administrator.
Usage reports do not cover perpetual license models, which are older copies of Office bought once instead of subscribed to. Seats come from a different place: licenses assigned appear under Billing > Licenses, and the licensed, unlicensed and guest users appear under Users > Active users.
03
What should you know about your Microsoft 365 data before you apply?
The short answer
For each app you want to include, have its size in the right unit, the years it covers and the number of people who use it. They go into the data manifest, the written summary of which apps hold your records, how many years each covers and roughly how much. You don't need to run an export to find them.
One line for each app
The manifest takes one line for each app, so write down the unit, the years and the seats from the table above. Report OneDrive and SharePoint on separate lines, because their storage is counted separately.
The years of history
The years of history differ by app, since some records expire. Teams recordings and transcripts expire after 120 days by default, and a departed employee's OneDrive is kept for 30 days by default. Check the oldest item you can still find in each app rather than the date you subscribed.
The number of seats
Seats are the people who use each app. A good starting point is the count of licensed users in the Microsoft 365 admin center, adjusted for the apps that only some people use, such as recorded meetings.
What you don't need to do first
You don't need to export anything to apply, and you don't need to clean or scrub an export. The data vendor anonymizes the records before anyone else sees them, and nothing moves until a lawyer-reviewed license is signed. The application, the intro call and each later step are laid out in how to sell your company's data.
04
How do you export Microsoft 365 data?
The short answer
Most Microsoft 365 exports run through one tool: eDiscovery in the Microsoft Purview portal, run by an admin in the eDiscovery Manager role group who holds a Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3 or E5 license. A single case can hold a search for mailboxes, Teams messages, SharePoint sites, OneDrives and recordings. The steps for each app are on its own page.
What every export has in common
eDiscovery is Microsoft's tool for searching a company's records and collecting them for legal and compliance work. Its rules are the same for every app: the finished packages must be downloaded within 14 days, because Microsoft deletes search export packages after that, and an export that runs for more than seven days is cancelled. Microsoft's guide to exporting eDiscovery search results states both limits.
Permissions come from the eDiscovery Manager role group, which an admin assigns under Settings > Role groups in the Microsoft Purview portal, as Microsoft's page on assigning eDiscovery permissions describes. Exporting SharePoint content also takes a SharePoint E3 license.
What differs from app to app
The tool is the same, but each app returns a different thing and has its own catch.
| App | What the export returns | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Outlook | Mailbox contents as PST files | Archive mailboxes and former staff's mailboxes are handled separately. |
| Microsoft Teams | Messages as PST or .msg files, or as JSON through the Export APIs | Files shared in Teams live in OneDrive and SharePoint, not in the message export. |
| SharePoint | Files from chosen sites, with all versions if requested | Files restricted by DLP rules or access controls are skipped. |
| OneDrive | Files from chosen people's OneDrives | A departed person's OneDrive is kept for 30 days by default. |
| Teams meeting recordings | MP4 files, with transcripts as VTT or DOCX | Recordings expire after 120 days by default. |
Which records run out first
Some Microsoft 365 records disappear on a timer, so they are worth securing before anything else. The diagram orders the default timers from shortest to longest.
Sources: Microsoft Learn, Microsoft 365 admin center usage reports overview, Export search results in eDiscovery, Assign permissions in eDiscovery, Export content with the Microsoft Teams Export APIs, OneDrive retention and deletion and Manage Teams recording expiration policy. Checked against these pages in November 2026; the app pages give the full steps.
05
What stays private when Microsoft 365 data is licensed?
The short answer
The company decides which apps, people, sites and date ranges are in scope, and the data vendor replaces names and other personal details with consistent stand-ins before an AI lab sees anything. The company keeps ownership of its records, and the license covers defined records for a defined use.
You choose what is in scope
Each app's export is its own search, so a company can license a few apps and leave the rest. It can also narrow each search to particular people, sites or date ranges. The data vendor deletes records too sensitive to clean safely instead of anonymizing them.
Names are replaced before a lab sees them
Anonymization means replacing every detail that identifies a person, such as a name or an email address, with a stand-in that is the same every time it appears. The records still read in order, so a lab can learn from them, but they no longer say who the people are. The method is in how company data is anonymized for AI training, and each app page shows an example.
Ownership and payment
Licensing gives the buyer limited rights to a copy, while the company keeps ownership of the originals. The terms that matter, such as exclusivity, permitted use and deletion, are covered in data licensing. micro1 pays in full within 30 days of accepting the data, usually as a single payment.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Which Microsoft 365 apps hold the records AI buyers want?
Five do: Outlook for email and calendars, Microsoft Teams for chat, SharePoint for shared documents, OneDrive for personal working files and Teams meeting recordings for recorded meetings. Each has its own page with the total, the export steps and the limits.
Do we have to include all five apps?
No. You decide which apps go into the dataset, and the price covers the whole dataset rather than any one app. A company can start with the apps whose records show its work most completely.
Is there one screen that shows everything we have?
Only partly. The Microsoft 365 admin center collects the usage reports under Reports > Usage, but each app uses its own unit, and recorded hours have no report at all. The table above shows where each total lives.
Where do our Word, Excel and PowerPoint files live?
In OneDrive and SharePoint. Files a person keeps for themselves sit in that person's OneDrive, and files a team shares sit on a SharePoint site, so the two pages cover them between them.
Which Microsoft 365 data disappears on its own?
Teams recordings and transcripts expire after 120 days by default, and a departed person's OneDrive is kept for 30 days by default. Teams messages deleted by a user stay reachable through the Export APIs for 21 days.
Do we need to export Microsoft 365 data before we apply?
No. The application takes about two minutes and shares no data. You only need approximate sizes, years of history and seat counts for the intro call, and the usage reports give most of them. The full exports are needed later, when the records are transferred after you sign the license.
What is Microsoft 365 data worth to AI labs and data vendors?
Microsoft 365 records are priced as part of a whole dataset rather than app by app. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, and the price depends on the years of history and how completely the records show each job. What your data is worth explains the factors.
Bottom line
Know what is in Microsoft 365, then see what it is worth
You don't need to export anything to apply. Apply in two minutes, describe your records on the intro call, and micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to, prices the whole dataset and sends an offer 1–2 days later.
Not legal, tax or financial advice. Figures come from micro1's published pages and public reporting as of November 2026.