Shutterstock Builds on Data Licensing Strength with New AI Services for Model Training and Evaluation

Rhea-AI Summary

Shutterstock (NYSE: SSTK) announced on Oct 7, 2025 a new suite of AI services for model training, fine‑tuning and evaluation that expands the company from multimodal data licensing into end‑to‑end model support.

The offering includes custom content production, rubric‑driven creative preference data, curation and annotation services, and evaluation pipelines with expert audits and live A/B benchmarks. Shutterstock cites its global scale—10 production hubs, 2M+ creators across 150+ countries—and existing partnerships with NVIDIA, Meta, OpenAI and Runway as foundations for the service.

Positive

• Launch of AI services on Oct 7, 2025
• 2M+ creators across 150+ countries
• 10 production hubs for custom dataset production
• Structured datasets with before/after pairs and production metadata
• Rubric‑driven creative preference data for RLHF‑style alignment
• Existing collaborations with NVIDIA, Meta, OpenAI, Runway

Negative

• None.

Insights

AI data licensing strategist

Shutterstock expands from data licensing into end-to-end AI services for model training and evaluation, leveraging its creator network and metadata.

Shutterstock formalizes a suite of AI services announced on Oct. 7, 2025 that extend its role from a multimodal content licensor to an active partner in model construction, fine-tuning and evaluation. The offering bundles custom content production (10 production hubs, 2M+ creators across 150+ countries), creative-expert preference data, curation/annotation, and evaluation pipelines into a single commercial proposition aimed at model builders.

The business mechanism centers on selling higher-value, specialized signals that standard data licensing lacks: human-calibrated preference judgments, production-grade datasets, and trait-level annotations that directly feed RLHF, reranking and benchmarking workflows. This upsells existing content assets into recurring services and consulting-style engagements.

Key dependencies and risks include client adoption of higher-priced, bespoke services versus commodity datasets, the ability to scale expert annotation without gross margin erosion, and maintaining data governance and brand-safety standards in evaluation pipelines. Existing collaborations cited with NVIDIA, Meta, OpenAI and Runway provide demand validation, but the conversion of partnerships into repeat revenue will determine commercial impact.

Watch for concrete commercial signals such as public partnership announcements, pilot-to-contract transitions, and evidence of recurring revenue within the next 12 months. Also monitor reported scope of datasets delivered (formats like multi-camera/stereoscopic) and measurable evaluation outputs that clients publish as proof points.

Leveraging its industry-leading content corpus and metadata licensing business, Shutterstock expands into AI services that power the next generation of model training, fine-tuning and evaluation

SAN FRANCISCO and NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Shutterstock, Inc. (NYSE: SSTK), a family of brands delivering scalable creative and GenAI solutions to help customers fuel great work, today launched a suite of AI services for model builders, providing specialized training datasets and evaluation tools to accelerate development of next-generation AI systems. Building on the company's leadership in multimodal data licensing, this offering expands Shutterstock's role from data provider to active partner in model construction, training and assessment. The new AI services offering, announced live from SF Tech Week, will deliver fast, high–impact, custom content and insights designed to align to the specific needs of AI models with human preferences and creative intent.

"Over the past two years, Shutterstock has significantly outperformed industry expectations, driven by rapidly rising demand for its vast multimodal data corpus, but model builders today need more—they need custom, high-quality, human-calibrated signals across the full training lifecycle," said Daniel Mandell, Senior Vice President of Data Licensing and AI at Shutterstock. "With this new suite of AI services, we're formalizing capabilities that leverage Shutterstock's global creative network, professional-grade production studio, and machine learning expertise to deliver end-to-end value for our partners."

End-to-end Support for Model Training
In addition to already providing the world's largest multimodal data corpus for AI training, Shutterstock now offers support across the entire model training lifecycle, including:

• Custom Content Production: With 10 production hubs and 2M+ creators across 150+ countries, Shutterstock delivers custom datasets at scale across every medium, aesthetic, and region, including cutting-edge formats like multi-camera and stereoscopic. Structured datasets include before/after pairs, production notes and metadata, giving model builders high-signal, hard-to-source training examples.
  
  
• Creative-Expert Preference Data: Shutterstock leverages professional creatives for rubric-driven aesthetic judgments that capture greater nuance, intent and quality than crowd signals. This structured feedback powers reinforcement learning, reranking and evaluation pipelines with the precision needed for next-generation generative models.
  
  
• Curation & Annotation Services: Advanced machine learning tools and human reviewers deliver trait-specific scoring, clustering, and annotations from lighting and composition to edit histories and metadata.
  
  
• Evaluation & Performance Insights: End-to-end evaluation pipelines include standard prompts, expert audits for safety and brand fit, trait-based scoring, and live A/B benchmarks so model builders gain clear insight into what's improving, regressing or needs focus.

A Creative Edge in Model Training
Shutterstock's strategic evolution in AI has made it a valuable partner to industry leaders like NVIDIA, Meta, OpenAI, Runway and others. Through these collaborations, the company is helping shape the next generation of generative AI tools and standards across 3D, imagery, text and video. This latest initiative leverages Shutterstock's unmatched content, which is rich in metadata, diverse in scope and extensively annotated, making it an unrivaled resource for training AI models.

"Shutterstock has been a key strategic partner for us as we develop industry-leading AI models for creatives. In addition to our data partnership, their expertise and feedback has been valuable to improving the overall performance of our technology," said Runway Head of Operations and Partnerships, Michelle Kwon.

"With these AI Services, we're bringing niche datasets and RLHF-style alignment to diffusion and multimodal models," added Mandell. "Our global network of creative professionals and our in-house teams make us uniquely suited to deliver preference data, annotations, and evaluation signals needed to close the gap between model capabilities and human expectations."

Leveraging Shutterstock's unmatched position at the intersection of data, creativity and technology, the company now enables model builders to access the resources they need to create safer, more capable and more aligned AI systems.

For more information on Shutterstock's AI services, visit shutterstock.com/business/ai-services.

About Shutterstock
Shutterstock is in the business of turning ideas into impact. Powered by a global network of millions of creators and our cutting-edge technology, we provide businesses, creatives and brand leaders with the essential, universal ingredients to make their work more effective. Shutterstock is home to the world's largest and most diverse collection of high-quality licensable assets, data and AI solutions, advertising and distribution solutions, exclusive editorial content, and full-service studio production—delivering unparalleled resources to fuel great work.

Discover our impact at www.shutterstock.com and connect with us on LinkedIn, Instagram, X, Facebook and YouTube.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/shutterstock-builds-on-data-licensing-strength-with-new-ai-services-for-model-training-and-evaluation-302576366.html

SOURCE Shutterstock, Inc.

FAQ

What did Shutterstock (SSTK) announce on Oct 7, 2025 regarding AI services?

Shutterstock launched a suite of AI services for model training, fine‑tuning and evaluation, expanding beyond data licensing into end‑to‑end model support.

How large is Shutterstock's creator network for SSTK AI services?

Shutterstock offers access to 2M+ creators operating across 150+ countries.

What production capacity supports Shutterstock's SSTK custom datasets?

Custom dataset production is supported by 10 production hubs and global creator networks.

What types of training signals does Shutterstock (SSTK) provide for model builders?

Shutterstock provides custom content, rubric‑driven creative preference data, curated annotations, and evaluation pipelines including expert audits and A/B benchmarks.

Which companies does Shutterstock cite as collaborators for SSTK AI work?

Shutterstock cites collaborations with NVIDIA, Meta, OpenAI and Runway as part of its AI ecosystem.

Where can model builders learn more or access Shutterstock's new AI services?

Information and service details are available at shutterstock.com/business/ai-services.