This week, Getty Images announced plans to merge with top competitor Shutterstock to form a $3.7 billion juggernaut in the stock-image/visual content industry. This merger aims to better position the companies for survival as mobile photography and generative AI tools continue to eat into their market share.
Both Getty Images and Shutterstock have long been major players in the licensed visual content market. This merger is expected to help them reduce costs and explore new revenue streams, particularly to combat the rise of generative AI. Platforms like Midjourney are obviously posing a growing challenge to the companies’ traditional visual content businesses.
Despite large stock surges after this announcement, both companies have experienced significant declines over the past few years. This isn’t just solely because of the emergence of AI, however. The increasing power of mobile cameras have also led to lower demand for stock photography.
If you’ve long required stock imagery to promote MaxBounty campaigns via display, native, or social ads, you can likely attest to a decreasing reliance on traditional stock imagery in the 2020s.
Following the merger, Getty CEO Craig Peters will take the reins of the new company which will retain the Getty Images name. The combined entity will benefit from Getty’s extensive visual content library and Shutterstock’s robust user community.
Peters also expressed confidence that the merger would gain antitrust approval in both the U.S. and Europe, emphasizing that customers have always had a range of choices in the marketplace.
It’s important to note that although this merger may seem like a strategical move in the stock photography VS AI war, that’s likely an inaccurate label long-term. Getty’s licensing rates have only gotten lower over the years, paying photographers some of the lowest rates in the industry. There’s a good chance this merger is a move to broaden their photo library that they can use to train their own AI, eventually reducing the need to pay human photographers.
Time will tell how this merger impacts the stock image industry, generative AI, and your own usage of the two in your digital marketing initiatives.
You can read more about the upcoming Getty Images/Shutterstock merger here.