Shutterstock, a leading provider of stock photos and videos, has announced an expansion of its partnership with AI research giant OpenAI. The new agreement will see Shutterstock provide OpenAI with high-quality training data, which will be used to improve the company's AI-generated content capabilities.
As part of the agreement, Shutterstock will grant OpenAI access to its image, video, and music libraries. This data will be used to train OpenAI's generative AI models, which can be used to create realistic and creative images, videos, and music. In return, Shutterstock will have access to OpenAI AI models such as DALL-E 2 and GPT-4.
The expanded partnership is a significant step for Shutterstock, as it will allow the company to offer more AI-generated content to its users. This content can be used for a variety of purposes, including marketing, design, and education.
“The renewal and significant expansion of our strategic partnership with OpenAI reinforces Shutterstock's commitment to driving AI tech innovation and positions us as the data and distribution partner of choice for industry leaders in generative AI,” said Paul Hennessy, CEO of Shutterstock.
Extending a Partnership to Bring AI to More Users
OpenAI and Shutterstock have been partners since 2021. Shutterstock was a collaborator – alongside Microsoft – in helping OpenAI trains its DALL-E AI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has previously described Shutterstock's data as “critical” to the ongoing development of the model. Last year, the two companies strengthened their partnership by opening Shutterstock.ai, a new portal that gives users access to DALL-E 2.
Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI, added about the extended partnership, “We're pleased to be able to license Shutterstock's high-quality content library. This extended collaboration not only enhances the capabilities of our image models but also empowers brands, digital media, and marketing companies to unlock transformative possibilities in content creation and ideation. We look forward to bringing the next generation of generative AI capabilities to Shutterstock and GIPHY's vast user base, further revolutionizing the way people express themselves through visual media.”
DALL-E 2 is an image-generating AI that was co-developed by OpenAI and Microsoft. Redmond provided an Azure-powered supercomputer to create the AI. This was the same computing system that built the GPT AI engine, which is now up to GPT-4 and powering services such as Bing Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot.
In March, Microsoft launched Bing Image Creator, which adds DALL-E/Microsoft Designer capabilities directly into Bing. It sits alongside the company's Bing Chat GPT-4 powered chatbot.
