Shutterstock partners Meta to boost data for AI image library

Media content firm Shutterstock has continued its investment in AI with a significant partnership with Meta. 

Under the deal, Meta will use Shutterstock’s collection of millions of images, videos and music to develop, train and evaluate its machine learning capabilities

Shutterstock’s growing alliance with Meta is a part of its greater strategic vision to be at the centre of technology, design, content and innovation.

“AI has the potential to drive an explosion of creativity,” said Paul Hennessy, Chief Executive Officer at Shutterstock. “Shutterstock is expanding our long-standing relationship with Meta, which follows our partnerships with OpenAI and LG AI Research announced last year, to reinforce our mission to invest in technology that brings creative ideas to life faster. We want to automate the busywork required to complete creative projects and help creators understand how their work is resonating. Our content will remain at the heart of these advancements both on and off our platform, and we will continue to shape the future of generative AI in a way that is ethical and artist-centric.”  

By tapping into Shutterstock’s collection of millions of images, videos and music, Meta plans to use these datasets to develop, train and evaluate its machine learning capabilities. 

Shutterstock is also one of the first companies to pay artists for their contributions to training machine learning models, and says it ensures the responsible creation and licensing of content with a transparent IP transfer.