The new agreement signed between OpenAI and Getty Images will make licensed visual content more visible in ChatGPT and OpenAI’s search products. Within the scope of the multi-year collaboration announced by Getty Images, the company’s photo and visual content libraries will be integrated into OpenAI platforms. Thus, users will have direct access to Getty’s licensed images in ChatGPT and OpenAI’s search experiences.
In his statement regarding the agreement, Getty Images CEO Craig Peters stated that high-quality and licensed visual content makes artificial intelligence-supported search and discovery experiences more useful and reliable. While Peters stated that the collaboration with OpenAI is a common reflection of this approach, he said that richer visual experiences will be offered to ChatGPT users.
Getty Images’ approach to AI companies has changed dramatically over the past few years. The company removed images produced by artificial intelligence from its platform in September 2022 and did not allow such content to be included in its library. After this, Getty Images filed a lawsuit against Stability AI, alleging copyright infringement. However, these allegations were not accepted by the court late last year.
The company then chose to develop its own product in the field of generative artificial intelligence. Rather than completely opposing AI-generated content, it created a controlled model that utilizes licensed content. This approach also attracted attention in terms of ongoing debates in the technology sector regarding copyrights and the protection of content owners’ income.
Use of licensed images in ChatGPT results is expanding
Getty Images announced its own generative artificial intelligence tool in 2023. Built on NVIDIA’s Edify AI model, the system was trained with Getty’s extensive visual archive. Providing every image created on the platform with a royalty-free license was among the elements highlighted by the company. Thus, it was aimed for users to act within a clearer framework regarding commercial use and copyrights.
In addition, Getty Images had a similar collaboration with Perplexity AI in October 2025. Thanks to this agreement, Perplexity’s AI-powered search and discovery tools gained access to Getty’s content library. In the statement made at that time, it was stated that improvements were planned to display images with source links and photo credits. The aim was to enable users to learn more about how to use licensed content.
Perplexity AI has faced various legal processes in the past due to allegations of unauthorized use of copyrighted content. For this reason, the agreement made with Getty was considered as a new approach on how to present licensed content on artificial intelligence platforms. The latest agreement with OpenAI similarly shows that business models that respect the rights of content owners are becoming widespread.
On the other hand, the information shared by Getty Images and OpenAI does not include full details about the scope of the agreement. In particular, no statement has been made about whether Getty’s images will be used in training OpenAI’s artificial intelligence models. Getty’s agreement with Perplexity did not include permission for educational use. However, it is not yet clear whether there is a similar limitation in the collaboration with OpenAI.
The agreement comes at a time when licensed and verifiable content is gaining importance in artificial intelligence-supported search services. While it is expected that ChatGPT users will be able to access more licensed visual content from now on, how the collaborations between content providers and artificial intelligence companies will take shape in the coming period is among the issues that will be closely monitored.