Archive · 3 Aug 2026
AI Firms Buying Books in Bulk, Dutch Bookseller Incident
Artificial intelligence companies usually learn from data they find on the internet.
But good online information is getting harder to find.
Because of that, some companies might be looking for books in real life.
A Dutch bookseller got a big order that could be for AI training.
This shows that AI companies might be buying books in bulk to help their models learn.
AI companies have historically sourced training data from online content.
High‑quality online material is increasingly scarce, prompting a shift to physical sources.
A Dutch bookseller recently received a large, suspicious order that may have been for AI training.
The order raised questions about how AI firms acquire books in bulk.
The incident highlights potential new supply chains for AI training data.
- Who
- AI companies and a Dutch bookseller
- What
- A large book order suspected for AI training
- When
- Recent incident
- Where
- Netherlands
- Why
- AI firms need high‑quality training data as online content becomes scarce
- Source of training data
- Online content
- Shift to physical books
- Increasing
- Incident location
- Netherlands
- Suspected buyer
- AI firms
- Issue
- Bulk book sourcing for AI training