Shutterstock has reportedly launched a ChatGPT app that lets users search its library of images, video, music, and sound effects directly within the chatbot and access assets available for licensing on Shutterstock.com.
The integration is meant to fit into creative workflows that increasingly start in conversational AI tools.
No more 'traditional' web experiences
Shutterstock cited OpenAI’s claim that ChatGPT handles more than one billion queries a day, and said it expects users to preview options during a chat rather than being redirected to traditional web experiences.
Paul Teall, Shutterstock’s vice president of marketplace strategy, said the app is intended to help teams move from content discovery to production with fully rights-cleared media.
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Broader AI play or reduced creativity?
The new ChatGPT app reportedly fits into a wider plan that has paid off, with Shutterstock’s AI data licensing business generating $104 million in revenue last year.
The tie-in extends a six-year partnership that licenses Shutterstock’s image, video, and music libraries to OpenAI for training its models.
Shutterstock now goes beyond data sales by providing AI services that help partners like Runway, a generative AI video startup, train and evaluate generative models.
The company aims to act as infrastructure, saying a steady stream of high-quality, rights-cleared data matters to AI as much as computing power.
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Generative AI wave for content owners
Shutterstock offers a “picks and shovels” approach for legacy content owners, including stock media libraries and publishers, to earn money by supplying licensed training data to AI developers rather than trying to outbuild them.
However, this tie-up might have an adverse effect on user creativity, particularly in images, audio, and visual files, by facilitating a broad playbook of generative content for users to choose from.
As AI firms face more lawsuits over copyrighted training data, Shutterstock leans on rights-cleared licensing and pays creators through a contributor fund. The company has also said it indemnifies enterprise customers in a separate context.
As per a report by The Times of India, the ChatGPT app marks a shift in distribution by moving discovery away from destination websites and placing licensed media inside AI-first workflows, where creative work often begins.
