Shares in Getty Photos Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: GETY) are surging in premarket buying and selling this morning—up almost a staggering 150% as of the time of this writing—after the inventory pictures big introduced an surprising cope with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. Right here’s what it’s worthwhile to know.
What’s occurred?
On Sunday, Getty Photos mentioned it has entered into a partnership with OpenAI. The deal will see photographs from Getty’s licensed content material libraries floor in OpenAI search outcomes and “discovery experiences inside ChatGPT.”
In different phrases, if you ask ChatGPT a query now, its reply might embody a Getty-licensed {photograph} or picture to assist illustrate the subject being mentioned.
“Excessive‑high quality, licensed visible content material makes AI‑powered search and discovery extra helpful and extra reliable,” Getty CEO Craig Peters mentioned in a press release. “This partnership with OpenAI displays a shared recognition of that, and collectively we’ll ship richer visible experiences to ChatGPT customers.”
No monetary particulars of the partnership have been disclosed. Getty has referred to the deal as a “multi‑yr settlement.”
A deal for show, not coaching
Getty is among the two most distinguished editorial and inventory picture corporations on this planet (the opposite being competitor Shutterstock). When you learn a information article on-line or in print, there’s a good likelihood a number of the photographs it comprises could also be from Getty’s content material library.
As a result of its picture library is the corporate’s bread and butter, Getty fiercely protects its content material.
That’s why it was little shock when the corporate grew to become one of many first big-name content material house owners to sue an AI firm, Stability AI, for allegedly infringing on its copyrights by coaching its AI fashions on Getty’s photographs. (Getty filed the swimsuit in 2023. In November 2025, Getty largely misplaced the swimsuit, noted Reuters on the time.)
Given Getty’s comprehensible displeasure with AI corporations utilizing its content material to coach their fashions, some might discover it shocking that the corporate has now entered right into a partnership with OpenAI.
But it’s necessary to notice that this week’s OpenAI-Getty deal doesn’t give OpenAI the flexibility to coach its mannequin on Getty photographs that floor in its search and chatbot outcomes.
Relatively, the deal is just for the show of related Getty photographs. A Getty spokesperson confirmed the display-only nature of the OpenAI deal to Quick Firm.
AI sinks and revives Getty’s inventory
Getty Photos initially went public in 1996 earlier than being taken personal by a personal fairness agency 12 years later.
However in 2022, the pictures firm once more went public on the New York Inventory Change (NYSE) through a particular objective acquisition firm, or SPAC. Whereas the corporate’s inventory briefly popped post-IPO, Getty additionally had the misfortune of going public simply as generative picture AI instruments have been taking off.
This, understandably, led many traders to query whether or not Getty’s very enterprise mannequin was below an existential risk if anybody might merely generate the picture they required utilizing AI instruments.
Getty’s inventory has since fallen sharply from its post-IPO excessive of above $30 per share in August 2022.
By September of that yr, GETY shares have been buying and selling beneath $10 apiece—and so they’ve fallen dramatically since.
Over the previous 12 months, GETY shares have cratered greater than 66% as of Thursday’s closing worth of 60 cents. Yr-to-date, GETY shares have been down almost 55%.
However then Getty introduced its OpenAI deal yesterday, and immediately, the primary day of buying and selling after the deal was introduced, the corporate’s shares are skyrocketing.
As of this writing, GETY shares are up greater than 149% to $1.59 per share in premarket buying and selling.
That’s a excessive the corporate’s share worth has not seen since final November. It additionally locations Getty inventory firmly again within the inexperienced for the calendar yr. Whether or not or not GETY shares can stay within the inexperienced for the remainder of 2026, nevertheless, stays to be seen.
