Industry guide
Manufacturer data licensing: how to sell manufacturing data to AI companies
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The short answer
Yes, you can sell manufacturing data to AI companies: a job shop, contract manufacturer or OEM can license a de-identified copy of its own records, and many buyers name manufacturing outright, including one buyer program that takes only industrial companies (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory). Each figure on this page is a program's own advertised term; our buyer directory lists the programs and links to their published terms. Buyers want quotes that won or lost, work orders with actual hours and scrap, NCR and CAPA files, and maintenance history.
Most programs look for about 20 to 40+ staff and years of records on one system. ITAR, EAR and CUI work, customer drawings in build-to-print shops, and injury records usually stay out. You keep your records and license a copy.
Why AI companies want manufacturing and job shop data
AI labs are building agents that do skilled office and engineering work, and they need examples of real decisions with real results. A shop produces those all day. An estimator looks at an RFQ and decides how many setups it needs, what material to quote and what margin the customer will bear. A planner decides which job jumps the queue when a spindle goes down. A quality engineer traces a run of out-of-tolerance parts back to a worn fixture and writes the corrective action. Every one of those calls ends in an outcome your systems record: the quote won or lost, the job shipped on time or late, the lot passed or was scrapped, the machine came back in two hours or two days.
Three things make a manufacturer's records stand out from other businesses its size:
- The job number is the spine. Quote, sales order, router, labor tickets, material, inspection, NCR, shipment and invoice all hang off one job in JobBOSS², E2, Epicor Kinetic, Global Shop, Plex or DELMIAworks. Ten years on one system gives long chains that link estimate to actual cost, which is what buyers rank highest.
- Outcomes are measured. Hours against standard, scrap counts, first-pass yield, on-time delivery and downtime are recorded as a matter of course. A lab cannot easily make that kind of labeled history on its own.
- Expert judgment is written down. Estimator notes, 8D write-ups, setup sheets, work instructions and maintenance comments carry reasoning from people with decades on the floor.
Buyers describe what they want in the same terms. One buyer program lists “Work orders, QA logs, spec sheets” under manufacturing; a broker lists “Production records, work orders, inspections, maintenance, procurement, inventory, and fulfillment exceptions”; and the industrial-only buyer program lists complaints and credit notes, inspection and maintenance records, order and stock exports, change requests and commissioning records (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory). For a one-page version written for owners, our overview of what production records are worth to AI labs lays out the records and the process.
AI buyers that name manufacturing and industrial companies
These are the programs in our registry whose own pages name manufacturing or industrial work, shown by type. Each cell is the program's own published term; our buyer directory lists the programs and links to where each says so.
| Program | What it names | Who qualifies | Advertised pay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buyer program B | Manufacturing | No headcount, years or geography published. Companies check eligibility through a qualification form. | No range published. Price is based on data volume, the number of tools connected, and depth. No upfront costs, setup fees or deductions. |
| Broker A | Manufacturing | 20+ full-time staff now or at peak, 3+ years of records, US-based, working mainly in English. Operating, downsizing and closed firms qualify. | An estimator example of $385K to $895K for a 100-person, 10-year firm, labeled an illustration based on its partner's payout model. |
| Marketplace A | Manufacturing | "Any business, in any industry, with a few years of records." No hard minimum on size or history; longer history is valued more. Sellers must show they own the data and can license it. | "$250K+ Typical company deal," with larger archives "reaching the millions." The release describes payouts of "many times" six figures for some companies. |
| Buyer program H | Industrial, energy and logistics | "40+ employees" is its "preferred starting point," assessed case by case. It asks for years of records. No geography is stated. | "$10K to $1M+" as an "illustrative value per data partnership, scaling with cadence." It says its partnerships are designed so there is opportunity for recurring revenue. |
| Buyer program J | Manufacturing, logistics and telecom | No headcount or years minimum published. It offers regional data residency guarantees. | Smaller datasets start around $50K and large partnerships reach "$1M+," paid as an upfront fee at signing plus a revenue share on downstream use. |
| Buyer program K | Manufacturing | "Any business with real operating history, in any sector." No headcount, years or geography minimum is published; it says the length and texture of the record matter more than headcount or revenue. | "$100K to $2M+." It says deals typically land between $100K and $2M and run higher for large or long records. Its site shows an example offer card for $640,000. |
| Buyer program L | Manufacturing | Companies headquartered and operating in the United States only. No size minimum published. Data held on behalf of your own clients is out of scope unless you have the right to license it. | No range published. Every record is priced individually after the program reads a de-identified sample. |
| Buyer program O | Manufacturing | Industrial companies only: "engineering (CAD and CAE), production, quality, service, supply and the commercial work around manufacturing." Companies that are "no longer trading" are accepted. No headcount minimum published. | No range published. Paid "as a one-off price or as a share of what we earn from licensing," on "agreed milestones." |
| Broker D | Manufacturing and industrials | Its estimate form accepts 20 to 5,000 full-time employees and 3 to 100 years in operation, with regions of US, Canada, Australia, Europe and other. "Data from any industry may qualify." | "Your company's operational data could be worth $50k-$4M+." It says the company keeps ownership of the underlying data and is paid for each licensing deal done with an AI lab. |
| Buyer program R | Manufacturing; Industrial | Not published. | Not published. |
A few points stand out for manufacturers. Buyer program O is the only program in our registry built around industrial records alone, and it accepts companies that are no longer trading. Marketplace A announced a $50 million program for skilled trades and manufacturing records on October 13, 2026. Buyer program E accepts most industries if you clear its office headcount gate, but lists “Defense and export-controlled work” as something it is not accepting right now (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory). That exclusion matches the screen most buyers apply in practice, and it is the first question to answer about your own shop.
Job shop data for AI training: the records buyers value
The pattern across buyers is simple: they want what your people estimated, planned, inspected and fixed. What your customers sent you, and what your software vendor generated, usually stays out. Here is how that maps to a shop.
| Record type | Where it usually lives | How buyers usually treat it |
|---|---|---|
| RFQs, estimates and quotes with win or loss | JobBOSS², E2, Global Shop, Epicor Kinetic, ProShop, Paperless Parts, email | Wanted; customer identity masked, attached drawings removed, recent price books held back |
| Work orders, travelers and labor tickets | ERP job module and shop-floor data collection | Wanted; customer part numbers masked, operator names and badge IDs tokenized |
| Routings, setups and cycle-time standards | ERP, setup sheets | Wanted; your process know-how, with controlled parts removed |
| Inspections, FAI, NCRs, CAPA, 8D and SPC | ETQ, MasterControl, 1factory, Net-Inspect, ERP quality modules, Excel | Wanted for commercial work; customer quality clauses checked; aerospace and defense files out |
| Maintenance work orders and equipment logs | Fiix, MaintainX, UpKeep, Limble, eMaint, spreadsheets | Wanted; technician names removed, vendor AI text stripped |
| Machine monitoring and utilization | MachineMetrics, ERP data collection | Wanted; benchmarking settings checked first |
| Purchasing, outside processing and supplier quality | ERP purchasing, email | Wanted; supplier reps masked, supplier confidentiality checked |
| Scheduling, MRP and inventory history | ERP scheduling and planning | Wanted; vendor AI forecasts removed |
| Own-product CAD, BOMs and change orders (OEMs) | SOLIDWORKS PDM, Autodesk Vault, Onshape, PLM | Case by case; export classification first, and Dassault terms if the files sit in a 3DS product |
| CNC programs and CAM files | Mastercam, Esprit, Fusion, DNC servers | Needs review; built from customer geometry, and controlled if the part is |
| Customer drawings, models and specs (build-to-print) | PDM, file shares, email | Out; the customer's property |
| Work instructions, SOPs and the quality manual | Dozuki, VKS, SharePoint | Wanted, after removing any that embed customer drawings |
| Job costing, AR and AP | ERP, QuickBooks | Wanted after personal and payroll data is removed |
| Email and Teams between estimating, engineering and the floor | Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack | Wanted after scrubbing; attachments with drawings or controlled data removed |
The test that sorts most shop records
Did someone in your building estimate it, plan it, inspect it or fix it? Then it is usually the kind of record buyers want. Did it arrive from a customer (a drawing, a model, a spec, a flow-down clause), or is it tied to a defense article? Then it usually stays out, even when it sits in the same job folder.
Job shops versus OEMs: who owns the drawings and the data
Manufacturers split into two kinds of seller, and the split decides what can go in a package.
Build-to-print job shops and contract manufacturers
A shop that makes parts to a customer's print owns its own process: the quote logic, the routing, the setup, the inspection plan, the scrap history and the maintenance log. It does not own the print. RFQ terms, purchase-order terms and supplier agreements usually make drawings and specs confidential, and some large OEMs claim all part data in their supplier terms. Even the buyer program built for industrial records says it takes customer or supplier drawings only “if you hold the rights to them and no confidentiality agreement stands in the way” (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory).
One more reason the print stays out: some customer drawings may already be in a vendor's model. Paperless Parts says it has “used a random sample of technical drawings uploaded to Paperless Parts” to train its own models, and that customers can ask to be excluded from aggregated model improvement (source: Paperless Parts, Artificial Intelligence in Paperless Parts (updated May 1, 2026)).
OEMs with their own products
A manufacturer that designs and sells its own machines, components or equipment owns its designs, BOMs, change orders, commissioning reports and field-service history. That makes it a cleaner seller in our view, and the engineering archive can be the most valuable part of the package. Two checks come first: whether any of the product is export-controlled, and whether the files sit in a Dassault product whose terms restrict AI training use (see below). Trade-secret exposure is a business call you make before anything is scoped.
Who qualifies to sell manufacturing data to AI
Headcount gates are where most shops win or lose a buyer, and the question is usually how many of your people work at desks.
| Program | Size gate | History |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer program H | 40+ employees as a preferred starting point, case by case; floor staff not separated | Asks for years of records |
| Buyer program E | 20+ full-time US office employees; only office staff count | 3+ years, 5+ systems |
| Broker A | 20+ full-time staff now or at peak; floor staff count | 3+ years of records |
| Buyer program A | 30+ employees; its form describes 30 to 200 | No minimum published |
| Broker D | 20 to 5,000 full-time employees on its estimate form | 3 to 100 years in operation |
| Buyer program O | No minimum published; industrial companies only; closed companies accepted | Not published |
| Marketplace A | No hard minimum | Longer history valued more |
| Buyer program B | Not published | Not published |
Desk staff versus the floor
By our estimate, 15 to 35 percent of a typical shop's people work at desks: estimating, engineering, quality, purchasing, planning, customer service and accounting. The rest are machinists, welders, assemblers and operators. That matters because Buyer program E states its gate as full-time US office employees (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory). On our estimate, a shop needs roughly 60 to 130 total staff to have 20 at desks. Programs that count all full-time staff, such as Broker A, or that state a total like Buyer program H's 40+, are the route below that line.
Years on one ERP
In our view the strongest candidates have 15 or more years in business and 10 or more on the same ERP or job-shop system. A migration (JobBOSS to JobBOSS², Vantage or E10 to Kinetic, a homegrown Access database to anything) often breaks the link between old jobs and their quality and maintenance records. If you kept the old server or a database backup, that archive may still count. Our guide to machine shop ERP, PDM and QMS data terms covers what each system lets you take and how long you have after you cancel.
How many manufacturers fit, for context
Census business counts for 2022 show 57,309 manufacturing firms (sectors 31 to 33) with 20 to 499 employees, and 41,171 with 30 to 499. Fabricated metal (NAICS 332) accounts for 12,260 of the first group, machinery (333) for 5,983, plastics and rubber (326) for 3,402, and computer and electronic products (334) for 2,975. Machine shops alone (332710) number 2,737 in the 20 to 499 band and 1,739 in the 30 to 499 band. The largest state pools are California (7,010), Texas (4,352), Ohio (3,531), Pennsylvania (3,312), Illinois (3,119), Michigan (3,073), Wisconsin (2,411) and Indiana (2,084) (source: Census, Statistics of US Businesses 2022). Census counts all employees and does not separate full-time staff. By our rough estimate, after removing aerospace, defense and medical shops, perhaps half to two-thirds of the machine shop pool remains; that is a guess, not a measurement.
Who usually does not fit
- Shops with under about 30 employees, or still running on paper travelers with no ERP history.
- Shops whose work is mostly ITAR, EAR-controlled or CUI, typically those advertising ITAR registration, AS9100 and defense primes as customers. One buyer program is not accepting defense and export-controlled work (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory).
- Build-to-print shops whose few large customers claim all part data in their supplier terms.
- Medical device makers whose complaint files hold patient information, until those files are removed.
- Recent private equity add-ons whose platform IT policies may block exports, in our view.
- Closed shops on a hosted ERP whose contract has already lapsed, because hosted export windows are short.
What buyers advertise paying for manufacturer data
No buyer publishes a price for manufacturing data specifically. What exists are each program's general ranges. A few that matter for a shop:
- Buyer program E: $100K to $5M advertised, with a full-corpus license and 24 months of seller exclusivity (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory).
- Broker D, which names manufacturing and industrials: “$50k-$4M+” (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory).
- Broker A, which names manufacturing: an estimator illustration of $385K to $895K for a 100-person, 10-year firm (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory).
- Marketplace A: “$250K+ Typical company deal”, and a $50 million program aimed at skilled trades and manufacturing businesses (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory).
- Buyer program H: “$10K to $1M+” as an illustrative value per data partnership (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory).
- Marketplace C: $20K to $5M advertised, and its own referral example is a 30-year-old machine shop with every quote and CAD file since the 1990s (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory). For a build-to-print shop, the customer CAD in that example would usually stay out.
- Buyer program K: $100K to $2M+, with published deals that are perpetual exclusive licenses; Buyer program J: about $50K to $1M+, exclusive by default (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory).
Treat estimators with care: several use nearly the same formula, so they are not independent valuations. What moves a shop's price is years on one ERP, records that link by job number from quote to invoice, outcomes in the data (hours, scrap, pass or fail, downtime), written expert judgment, and how much controlled or customer-owned material has to come out. Our data value checker walks through those factors for your company.
What usually stays out of a manufacturing data license
Manufacturing has more controlled and customer-owned material inside its systems than most industries. Sorting it out is the first job, before you talk to any buyer. Here is what the rules, contracts and vendor terms say, in summary.
- ITAR technical data. The ITAR defines technical data as information required for the design, development, production, manufacture, assembly, operation, repair, testing, maintenance or modification of defense articles, including “blueprints, drawings, photographs, plans, instructions, or documentation” (22 CFR 120.33(a)(1)) (source: 22 CFR 120.33, technical data (ITAR)). Releasing it to a foreign person, even inside the US, is an export. AI buyers and their annotators may include foreign persons, so controlled records usually stay out entirely.
- EAR-controlled technology and CUI. Information that the government creates or possesses, or that a contractor creates for it, and that a rule requires to be safeguarded, is CUI (32 CFR 2002.4(h)) (source: 32 CFR 2002.4(h), Controlled Unclassified Information). Defense contracts flow down DFARS 252.204-7012, which requires NIST SP 800-171 security and reporting of cyber incidents within 72 hours (source: DFARS 252.204-7012 (May 2024), safeguarding covered defense information). Our guide to ITAR technical data, EAR99 and CUI in a data license goes through each rule and how a mixed shop separates its commercial work.
- Customer drawings, models and specs. In a build-to-print shop these belong to the customer and usually come under RFQ or purchase-order confidentiality.
- Injury and health records. OSHA 300 logs and incident reports with employee health details stay out; at most, fully aggregated statistics.
- Patient information. Medical device complaint files that name or describe patients stay out.
- Vendor AI outputs. Fishbowl bars using its services to “train or benchmark competing AI systems” without written consent (§17.4(e)) (source: Fishbowl Subscription Terms, May 12, 2026 (9.2, 14.2, 17.4)), and MaintainX bars using its AI Features or AI Output to develop, train or improve machine learning (§4.5(n)) (source: MaintainX Terms of Service, January 3, 2025 (4.5, 7.2, 12.5)). Forecasts, summaries and suggestions generated by your software are stripped.
- Recent price books and current designs. The industrial-only buyer program itself says “Current designs, prices and anything a competitor could use remain yours” (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory).
- Records under legal hold and anything tied to a pending warranty or product-liability claim.
None of this empties the dataset. Take out the controlled parts, the customer prints and the protected fields, and what remains (quotes with masked customers, work orders, routings, commercial quality records, maintenance logs, schedules, SOPs and internal email) is the part buyers say they want. You approve the scope, and each exclusion is named in the contract.
Manufacturing ERP, PDM and QMS data: what your software terms say
Your systems are where the value sits, so their contracts matter. Good news first: most terms we could read today confirm the manufacturer owns its data. The caveats are about AI-training clauses, vendor rights to aggregated data, and how long you have to export after you cancel.
| System | Who owns the data | After you cancel | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dassault: SOLIDWORKS PDM, DELMIAworks, 3DEXPERIENCE | Customer or its licensors remain the owner of Customer Data (CLOSA §10.1) | See your cloud terms | Bars using content, data or results generated by any 3DS Offering to develop third-party or competing software, including through AI model or system training (§2.2(a)) |
| Plex and Fiix (Rockwell Automation) | You retain all right, title and interest in data you make available (SCSA §1.10.4) | 10 days to download a copy (§2.13) | Rockwell holds a license to use that data to improve its products (§1.10.4) |
| Fishbowl | Customer retains all rights in its data (§9.2) | Data in the product deleted or made inaccessible on termination (§14.2) | No training or benchmarking competing AI with the services without consent (§17.4(e)) |
| Octave Reliance (ETQ) | Customer owns Customer Data (§3.2) | Request a file within 30 days of the end date (§2.3) | Bars indirect use of the services to generate revenue for the customer (§1.9.1(d)) |
| MasterControl | Client Data means data in managed documents (§1.6) | Electronic file of Client Data on written request (§7.2) | May use data anonymously for benchmarking (§5.1) |
| MaintainX | You remain sole owner of Customer Data (§7.2) | 30 days for electronic retrieval (§12.5) | Owns aggregated and de-identified data it derives (§7.2); AI Output may not train ML (§4.5(n)) |
| Limble | Customer owns Customer Data (§4.1) | Written request within 30 days (§6.6) | May use aggregated, de-identified data for benchmarking and marketing (§4.1) |
| MachineMetrics | Customer is sole owner of Customer Data (§5.1) | Up to 90 days to export, on written request (§9.4(b)) | Shares data for benchmarking unless you exclude machines in settings (§5.2) |
Two practical points follow. First, export with your system's own tools, run by your own staff or your implementation partner, and keep the buyer out of your ERP; the records leave as files you approve. Second, if your engineering or ERP data sits in a Dassault product, read the agreement version you signed before you scope anything from it. Section 2.2(a) of the current US agreement applies “except as specifically permitted in this Agreement or in a separate written agreement” (source: Dassault Systemes CLOSA (Indirect) USA V13.2.1 (2.2, 10.1)), so written consent from Dassault is the clean route. Our guide to machine shop ERP data export and vendor terms goes system by system.
If you are selling or retiring from your manufacturing business
Shops change hands steadily. KSM counted 123 industrial manufacturing transactions announced in Q2 2026, against 137 in Q1 and 133 a year earlier, and said buyers are weighing unique capabilities and customer relationships over simple scale (source: KSM, Q2 2026 industrial manufacturing M&A report). If a sale, a family succession or a management buyout is on your horizon, a data license is one more contract the buyer of your company will read in diligence. Exclusivity is the term to watch: one buyer program requires 24 months of seller exclusivity, and another's published deals are perpetual exclusive licenses (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory).
Licensing before a sale can turn an archive into cash that the acquirer does not pay you for. Licensing after a sale usually means the records belong to the new owner. If you are closing instead, some programs take closed companies, but hosted data has a short life after you cancel: Plex gives 10 days to download a copy (source: Rockwell Automation Software and Cloud Services Agreement, Rev. April 2026 (1.10.4, 2.13)). Our guide to selling a machine shop or manufacturing business covers timing, valuation multiples and what an acquirer will ask.
How a manufacturer data licensing deal runs, step by step
- Inventory. List your systems (ERP, quoting, QMS, CMMS, PDM, machine monitoring, email, shared drives), how many years each holds, and roughly how many jobs a year you run. Nothing leaves your systems at this stage.
- Screen. Separate ITAR, EAR-controlled and CUI work by customer, part and program. Mark customer drawings, flow-down clauses and records in Dassault products for review.
- Scope. Decide what is in and what is out. Controlled work, customer prints, injury records, patient data, vendor AI outputs, recent price books and anything under legal hold are the usual exclusions. You approve the scope, and it is written into the contract.
- De-identification. Customer names and part numbers, operator and inspector names, badge IDs and supplier reps are masked or replaced with consistent tokens, so a job still links from quote to invoice without naming anyone. One buyer program says it anonymizes inside your environment before anything leaves (source: program terms, Regulr buyer directory).
- Offers. Buyers review a sample or a description and make an offer. Terms differ on exclusivity, whether the full corpus is required, and whether payment is one-off or a share of later licensing.
- Terms. Price, payment schedule, exact scope, exclusivity, permitted uses, deletion at the end of the term, an export-control representation, and the warranties you give about your rights to the records.
- Delivery. Your staff or your ERP partner run the export, and the records go from your systems to the buyer you chose. With Regulr, they never pass through us.
The best position is more than one written offer, because buyers price the same records differently and treat customer and controlled data very differently. That comparison is the work Regulr does for the seller. If you also distribute what you make, our guide for wholesale distributors covers order, inventory and pricing records in more depth. To see how your shop would come out, start with the manufacturing page and see what your production records could qualify for.
How Regulr is paid, and how we write these pages
Regulr is a sell-side advisor. When a business we introduce signs a license, we may be paid a fee by the buyer or through a program's referral terms. We list every program we can verify whether or not it pays us, order is never set by fees, and every figure is the company's own advertised term with a link to where it says so. Regulr has not closed a data deal yet, so nothing here describes our results.
Frequently asked questions
Can a manufacturer sell its data to AI companies?
Yes. Several AI training-data companies license de-identified copies of operating records, and many name manufacturing outright, including one buyer program that takes only industrial companies. A deal covers records your own people created: quotes and estimates, work orders and travelers, inspection and NCR files, maintenance logs, routings, SOPs and internal email. You license a copy for an agreed use and keep your originals.
What manufacturing data do AI buyers want most?
Records that show a decision and how it turned out. For a shop that means quotes that won or lost, work orders with planned against actual hours and scrap, NCR and CAPA files with a root cause and a fix, and maintenance tickets with downtime attached. They are worth most when one ERP links them by job number over ten or more years.
Can a job shop sell its customers' drawings to an AI company?
Usually not. In a build-to-print shop the drawings, models and specs belong to the customer, and RFQ and purchase-order terms usually make them confidential. Even a buyer that collects CAD says it takes customer or supplier drawings only if you hold the rights and no confidentiality agreement stands in the way. Shops license their own records around the drawings instead: the quote logic, the routing, the inspection history and the work order.
Can an ITAR-registered machine shop license any of its records?
Possibly, but only after controlled work is fully separated. ITAR technical data includes blueprints, drawings, photographs, plans, instructions and documentation for defense articles, and releasing it to a foreign person counts as an export. One buyer program says it is not accepting defense and export-controlled work at all. A shop with a separate commercial book can sometimes license that side; our ITAR, EAR and CUI guide covers the screen.
How much is a machine shop's data worth?
No buyer publishes a manufacturing-specific price. The programs that accept manufacturers advertise broad ranges, such as $100K to $5M at one buyer program, $50K to $4M+ at a broker that names the category, and $250K+ as a typical company deal at a marketplace. Advertised ranges are not offers. Years on one ERP, linked records and how much controlled or customer-owned material has to be removed move the number most.
Do machinists and operators count toward a buyer's headcount minimum?
It depends on the program. One buyer program counts only full-time US office employees, so estimating, engineering, quality, purchasing, planning and accounting count while the floor does not. A broker counts all full-time staff now or at your peak, and another buyer program states its preference as 40+ employees without splitting desk from floor. By our estimate, a shop needs about 60 to 130 total staff to have 20 at desks.
Does my ERP or PDM vendor let me license my shop's records?
Most terms we read today say the manufacturer owns its data, including Rockwell's agreement for Plex and Fiix, Fishbowl, Octave (ETQ), MaintainX, Limble and MachineMetrics. The exception to check first is Dassault: its US customer agreement bars using data generated by any 3DS Offering to develop third-party or competing software, including through AI model or system training. That reaches SOLIDWORKS PDM, DELMIAworks and 3DEXPERIENCE records unless a separate written agreement allows it.
Will my customers find out I licensed my shop's records?
Buyers license records with customer names, part numbers, contacts and employee names masked or replaced with consistent tokens, so the dataset is not meant to point back to any one account. That is not a guarantee: a small customer base or an unusual process can make a job easier to trace. Agree in writing on what is excluded, that the buyer will not try to re-identify anyone, and whether your company's name stays confidential.
Sources
Program terms checked against their own pages on October 15, 2026; our buyer directory lists the programs and links to their published terms. Vendor terms, federal rules and the KSM report read on their own pages or PDFs on October 18, 2026. Census counts computed from the public SUSB 2022 files on October 15, 2026.
- program terms, Regulr buyer directory
- Census, Statistics of US Businesses 2022
- 22 CFR 120.33, technical data (ITAR)
- 32 CFR 2002.4(h), Controlled Unclassified Information
- DFARS 252.204-7012 (May 2024), safeguarding covered defense information
- Dassault Systemes CLOSA (Indirect) USA V13.2.1 (2.2, 10.1)
- Rockwell Automation Software and Cloud Services Agreement, Rev. April 2026 (1.10.4, 2.13)
- Fishbowl Subscription Terms, May 12, 2026 (9.2, 14.2, 17.4)
- Octave Reliance (ETQ) Master Subscription Agreement, June 2026 (1.9.1, 2.3, 3.2)
- MasterControl SaaS Terms, October 8, 2025 (1.6, 5.1, 7.2)
- MaintainX Terms of Service, January 3, 2025 (4.5, 7.2, 12.5)
- Limble Terms of Service, Version 7, December 10, 2025 (4.1, 6.6)
- MachineMetrics Master Services Agreement, November 22, 2022 (5.1, 5.2, 9.4)
- Paperless Parts, Artificial Intelligence in Paperless Parts (updated May 1, 2026)
- KSM, Q2 2026 industrial manufacturing M&A report
Brian Boesen · Founder, Regulr AI
Brian runs Regulr AI, which works for established businesses that want to license de-identified records to AI companies. He checks each program's published terms against its own pages and updates these guides when they change. Last updated October 18, 2026.
This page is general information, not legal advice, and Regulr is not a law firm. Rules vary by state, by profession and by contract, and they apply to your facts, not to a category. You approve exactly what is in scope before anything is shared.
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