Getty Images shares surged 19% on Friday after the company announced a multi-year licensing deal with artificial intelligence search startup Perplexity AI, marking one of the most significant partnerships yet between a traditional media asset platform and a rapidly growing AI company.
Under the agreement, Perplexity will gain access to Getty Images’ vast library of creative and editorial photos, which will be integrated into its AI-powered search tools. The partnership allows Perplexity to display high-quality visuals within its results while ensuring that photographers and content creators receive proper credit.
“Partnerships such as this support AI platforms to increase the quality and accuracy of information delivered to consumers, ultimately building a more engaging and reliable experience,” said Nick Unsworth, vice president of strategic development at Getty Images, in a statement announcing the deal.
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Financial terms were not disclosed, but analysts say the agreement underscores the growing importance of licensed data in training and enriching AI systems. Getty Images — long a vocal advocate for protecting intellectual property in the age of generative AI — has struck similar licensing partnerships in the past year, including one with Nvidia to provide legally sourced visual data for AI model development.
The new arrangement will also improve how Perplexity displays imagery on its platform. The AI firm will begin showing image credits and direct links to the original source on Getty’s website, addressing one of the most persistent criticisms of AI tools — their tendency to use copyrighted content without attribution.
Perplexity, founded in 2022 and backed by investors such as Jeff Bezos and Nvidia, has quickly become one of the most prominent challengers to Google and OpenAI in the AI search space. Its conversational search engine gives users direct, concise answers to questions, accompanied by citations and external links to verified sources — a feature that has earned it a reputation for transparency and reliability.
The company recently expanded its ecosystem with Comet, an AI browser available globally for free. Comet allows users to browse, summarize, and query the web in real time using conversational AI. It competes directly with OpenAI’s new browser, ChatGPT Atlas, which was unveiled earlier this month, and Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE), which blends generative AI answers into traditional search results.
For Getty Images, the deal represents another step in its broader strategy to remain relevant in an AI-dominated media landscape. The company has aggressively pursued partnerships with AI developers while simultaneously fighting unlicensed data scraping. In 2023, Getty sued Stability AI for allegedly using millions of its copyrighted images to train the Stable Diffusion model without permission.
By collaborating with Perplexity, Getty appears to be balancing protection and participation — asserting its rights over visual content while ensuring its vast archive remains integral to the AI revolution.
The deal is expected to serve as a model for how traditional content owners and AI firms can coexist through licensing rather than litigation. AI firms need credible, high-quality data, and content owners need to ensure they’re not erased from the value chain.
The news sent Getty Images’ stock soaring as investors cheered the company’s ability to monetize its library through AI integration. Analysts believe the collaboration could lead to similar deals across the AI industry as search companies race to enhance visual quality and source transparency in their products.