404 Media traces bulk book orders to Amazon's VGT3 facility, where books are scanned for AI training and destroyed

What happened

On 17 August 2026, 404 Media reported that Amazon is buying massive quantities of printed books, scanning them for AI training data, and destroying the physical copies in the process. Reporters placed a tracking device inside a rare book that was part of an unusually large order of roughly 1,000 books placed through Biblio, an online marketplace for used and rare books, and followed it to an Amazon facility in Las Vegas.

What the tracker found

The tracked book travelled from California through Wisconsin and Colorado before stopping at the northern portion of Amazon's LAS8 complex in Las Vegas, where employees identified a separate operation known internally as VGT3. According to Amazon employees interviewed by 404 Media, workers at the facility receive large shipments of printed books and remove their bindings so the pages can be scanned quickly; the physical copies do not survive the process.

What Amazon said

Amazon confirmed that it buys books, telling 404 Media: "Amazon purchases books through commercial channels to help develop and improve the products and services our customers use." It did not say which models were being developed with the scans, how the resulting files were being used, how long they would be retained, or what legal theory it relies on. 404 Media concluded the scans feed AI training; Amazon did not itself confirm the AI-training purpose.

What the investigation does not establish

The investigation does not establish how many books Amazon has scanned, the titles processed, or exactly which Amazon models use the text. The books tracked were described as rare, and the sellers had suspected AI companies were behind the bulk orders because of the volume, the seemingly random choice of books, and buyers who did not seem price-sensitive. Buying a book transfers ownership of the physical copy, not the copyright in the work inside it.