Getty Images and OpenAI recently entered a multi-year display agreement that places licensed images from the stock photography company into ChatGPT.
The arrangement makes Getty content available across search and discovery features inside the AI platform, where it can appear as part of visual responses to user queries. The companies described the move as a way to bring high-quality, rights-cleared pictures into AI experiences so that results become more useful and reliable for people who rely on the chatbot for information.
The announcement came from Getty Images pointed readers to the details.
Craig Peters, the company's chief executive, said high-quality licensed visual content improves AI-powered search and discovery and that the partnership reflects a shared view on that point.
The focus stays on display of existing images rather than broad training of new models, and every picture shown carries proper licensing so that creators receive credit and compensation.
Getty Images has partnered with @OpenAI to bring licensed content into ChatGPT to support search and discovery. This work helps improve the accuracy, transparency and reliability of visual results in AI-powered experiences.
Learn more here https://t.co/t6yN3zVle0— Getty Images (@GettyImages) June 22, 2026
This step fits a longer pattern at Getty Images.
The company first built its position by moving a scattered, largely analog business of stock photographs onto the internet at a time when digital distribution was still new.
In 1995 Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein started the venture in London after recognizing that photographers and buyers would soon need easier ways to find and license pictures online. Early acquisitions gave them a foothold, and a 1997 merger with PhotoDisc, a pioneer in royalty-free digital imagery, created the combined company that became Getty Images.
Headquarters later moved to Seattle as the business grew through further purchases and expanded its reach around the world.
Over the years Getty Images assembled one of the largest privately held collections of photographs.
It covers breaking news, sports, entertainment, creative work for advertising and design, and an extensive historical archive that stretches back to the earliest days of photography.
The company works with hundreds of thousands of individual creators and maintains partnerships that let it cover major events each year. It now runs several brands: the core Getty Images service for premium editorial and creative material, iStock for more accessible royalty-free options, and Unsplash, which hosts images contributed by a community of photographers.
The business went public and trades under the ticker GETY.
Getty's relationship with emerging technologies has shifted over time.
At one stage it restricted AI-generated images on its own platforms and pursued legal action against developers accused of using its pictures without permission to train models. It later introduced its own generative tools built on properly licensed content and began forming controlled partnerships that let selected platforms surface its library.
A comparable agreement with Perplexity preceded the OpenAI deal. In each case the emphasis has remained on licensed material that keeps attribution and payment intact for the people who created the original work.
The OpenAI arrangement continues that direction.
Images that appear inside ChatGPT remain the same licensed photographs already available through Getty's normal channels. They surface to enrich answers rather than to serve as raw material for retraining systems. Observers noted that Getty's stock price rose sharply in the trading session after the news became public, a reaction that highlighted investor attention to licensing deals between established visual archives and large AI developers.
Visual content has always depended on clear rights and reliable sourcing.
Getty Images began by solving practical problems of access and licensing in the early internet era, and it now faces a similar set of questions as AI systems start to handle more image-related tasks.
The current partnership supplies one concrete example of how a long-standing archive can contribute to new platforms while still directing value back to the photographers and rights holders whose work forms the foundation of the collection.