What They Did
Shutterstock and Getty Images are the world's two dominant stock photography platforms, with combined archives of hundreds of millions of licensed images, videos, and music tracks. Shutterstock generated $935.3 million in 2024 revenue; Getty reported $939.3 million. Together they serve millions of creative professionals, marketers, and publishers who need licensed visual content.
How LLMs Killed Them
Generative AI image tools -- DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Adobe Firefly -- allow users to generate custom, photorealistic images in seconds for a fraction of the cost of licensing stock photos. By 2025, 39% of marketers use AI for social media visuals and 36% for website imagery. Adobe's Firefly alone generated 3 billion images within months of launch, surpassing the total archives of many stock photo libraries. Traditional licensing revenue is stagnating while both companies scramble to pivot toward AI data licensing.
Timeline
- 2023: Shutterstock launched AI image generator (Shutterstock Generate) and expanded a 6-year partnership with OpenAI to provide training data.
- 2023: Shutterstock's AI licensing revenue reached $104 million.
- 2024: Getty Images' flagship Creative stock segment declined nearly 5% year-over-year.
- 2024: Shutterstock net income margins collapsed from 12.6% to 3.8%.
- January 2025: Getty Images and Shutterstock announced a $3.7 billion merger to consolidate and cut $150-200M in costs.
- July 1, 2026: Getty Images walked away from the $3.7B merger after the UK's Competition and Markets Authority required a sale of Shutterstock's editorial business. Shutterstock fell about 30% after hours, and Getty's stock was trading at $0.87.
- July 7, 2026: Merger agreement formally terminated; Getty hired advisers to explore financing options.
- Projected: AI-generated imagery expected to displace 5-15% of traditional stock photo demand by 2030.
By the Numbers
- Getty Creative revenue down 5% year-over-year in 2024
- Shutterstock net income margins collapsed from 12.6% to 3.8%
- $3.7 billion merger announced to survive AI disruption
- $150-200 million in planned cost cuts over 3 years, lost when the merger collapsed in July 2026
- Shutterstock down about 30% on the news; Getty trading below $1
- Adobe Firefly generated 3 billion images in months
- 39% of marketers now use AI for social visuals