Getty Made Peace With AI, and Its Stock Jumped 145%

While 400 newspapers are suing OpenAI, Getty Images chose the opposite path and got paid for it. Getty's stock soared as much as 145 percent after it signed a deal to display its licensed images inside ChatGPT. The split shows two ways content owners are reacting to AI: fight it, or license it.

The deal itself is straightforward. Getty's licensed photos will appear in OpenAI's search results and discovery features inside ChatGPT, under a multi-year agreement. Getty gets a new distribution channel and a revenue path, while OpenAI gets access to professionally licensed, commercially safe images instead of relying on uncertain sources. Both sides get something they wanted.

The reversal is the striking part. Getty was one of the loudest critics of generative AI, having sued an image-generation company for training on its photos without permission. Now it is partnering with the biggest name in AI, a sign that some content owners have decided licensing beats litigating. The market clearly preferred the deal, sending a beaten-down stock up by triple digits in a day.

It points to a model the whole industry is watching. If AI firms pay to display and license professional content, owners get a fresh income stream and AI products get higher-quality, legally clean material. That is the carrot version of the same fight the newspapers are pursuing with a stick. The two approaches may end up at the same place, content owners getting paid.

The honest caveats are real. The companies did not disclose financial terms or say whether Getty's images would be used to train future models, which is the more contentious question. A display deal is narrower than a training license, and a 145 percent jump in a low-priced stock reflects excitement as much as fundamentals. One deal is not a settled business model.

So Getty turned an AI threat into an AI partner, and investors cheered the pivot. A ChatGPT integration, a multi-year deal, and a stock that doubled intraday. The choice between suing AI and selling to it is being made in real time across the content world. Watch whether more libraries license, and whether training rights get included next.