In today’s digital landscape, individuals are inundated with data. Every step counted by your health app, every bio-metric captured by your Oura ring, and even every social media post you make contributes to this massive pool of valuable information. This data is increasingly recognized as essential in the race to develop effective artificial intelligence (AI), earning it the moniker ‘the new oil.’ However, despite its potential value, monetizing personal data remains a significant challenge for individuals, who often lack the leverage to sell or benefit from their information.
Enter Vana. Co-founder Anna Kazlauskas believes that data is fundamentally reshaping the digital economy. “Many people are unaware that they actually own their data,” she states, emphasizing the need for individuals to reclaim this ownership. With an ecosystem built around user-owned data, Vana aims to unite millions of data owners, thus providing them with greater bargaining power and opportunities in the realm of AI.
This innovative ecosystem consists of several components, including Data DAOs, decentralized data marketplaces, and collaborations like the one recently established with Flower Labs to create the world’s first user-owned foundational model. As covered by WIRED, this collaboration represents a significant step forward in integrating decentralized AI into mainstream applications.
Kazlauskas will present a keynote at the AI Summit at Consensus 2025, where she will elaborate on this vision. She notes a growing awareness among individuals regarding the importance of their data in the AI ecosystem, predicting that within a few years, over 100 million users will actively engage in this movement, and potentially more than 10 billion in the next decade.
Interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Why is user-owned data so important?
Anna Kazlauskas: “Most people assume data is owned by the platforms it resides on; that’s simply not true. Just as parking your car doesn’t transfer ownership of it to the lot’s operator, users possess full rights to their data, which is often monetized by large tech companies without fair compensation. It’s critical to restore this ownership for both users and developers alike.”
How does this benefit developers?
Access to quality data is pivotal for developers, especially within AI. However, much of this information is confined within the walls of major tech corporations. Thus, talented AI professionals are often drawn to these large labs, where data and computational resources are abundant. Vana strives to change that dynamic.
What role do Data DAOs play?
Data DAOs function like a labor union for data holders, allowing users to aggregate their data collaboratively and make collective decisions about its usage. Individual data points may have limited value, but when pooled, they become far more impactful and machine-learning ready.
Which Data DAOs excite you most?
Several promising DAOs are emerging in the health sector, focusing on areas like biometric data and patient medical records. For example, there are initiatives leveraging Tesla’s driver data, revealing that users can derive considerable insights from their own data sets.
What about your collaboration with Flower Labs?
The goal of COLLECTIVE-1 is to create the first user-owned foundational model, in contrast to traditional approaches dominated by single companies. By integrating federated training methods developed by Flower AI with Vana’s comprehensive data pool, we empower users to own the model and control its applications.
Ultimately, how does better data lead to superior AI?
Precisely. The crux of decentralized AI is that it enables the collaborative accumulation of data, surpassing individual corporate silos. This results in unmatched data quality and diversity, fostering AI that is not only competitive but potentially superior to centralized models.
Thank you, Anna; I look forward to seeing you at the AI Summit in Toronto.
Jeff Wilser will host the AI Summit at Consensus 2025 and is the host of The People’s AI: The Decentralized AI Podcast.
