Photo banks Getty Images and Shutterstock announced a merger for $3.7 billion. The merger will allow the companies to expand their photo libraries, which is important against the backdrop of growing competition from generative neural networks that allow creating images based on text descriptions.
Image Source: The Verge
Getty Images CEO Craig Peters will become head of the combined company once the merger is completed. The updated board of directors will consist of top managers from Getty Images and Shutterstock, including Shutterstock CEO Paul Hennessy.
In a press release issued today, Peters said the merger will strengthen the companies by “improving our content offerings, increasing the number of events we cover and providing new technologies to better serve our customers.” Getty Images confirmed that Shutterstock will maintain its website after the merger.
The merger between Getty Images and Shutterstock comes amid a proliferation of AI algorithms for generating images based on text descriptions from companies such as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Adobe. It is also possible that the merger of the two photo banks will attract the attention of antimonopoly authorities, who will want to study the consequences of the transaction for the market.