Apple has reportedly struck a licensing agreement worth tens of millions of dollars with Shutterstock, one of the biggest stock image and media providers worldwide, to use their library for AI training purposes, according to a new Reuters report.
The deal, estimated to be worth between $25 million and $50 million, would see Apple use Shutterstock’s library of hundreds of millions of licensed images, videos, and audio to train its in-house AI model. Shutterstock’s CFO Jarrod Yahes disclosed Apple’s deal with the stock media provider for the first time, adding that other companies like Google, Meta, and Amazon have signed similar AI training deals. Yahes also hinted that the agreement with Apple has since expanded in size and compensation, though he declined to provide further details
The report adds that the market for AI training data has exploded in recent times following the surge in popularity of AI tools and chatbots following the introduction of ChatGPT. Today, this market is estimated to be already worth around $2.5 billion and is set to grow substantially this decade to top $30 billion.
This wouldn’t be the first time we hear Apple exploring licensing deals with media providers to use their archive for AI training purposes. Last year, The New York Times reported that Apple was in talks with leading news and content publishers to license their archives for AI training. At that time, Apple reportedly held talks with the likes of Condé Nast, NBC News, and IAC.
The company’s licensing deal for AI purposes stems from its desire to commit to data privacy. Apple reportedly avoids freely collecting data from the internet or social media platforms like Twitter over privacy concerns. The company feels that a data licensing deal with publishers is the best way to collect massive amounts of data without compromising online privacy, and is particularly keen on avoiding tedious lawsuits from publishers over the unauthorized use of copyrighted material as was the case with OpenAI and Microsoft.
Apple is strongly rumored to be planning to unveil a slew of AI features as part of iOS 18 and more at WWDC 2024. While the company is not expected to announce a direct chatbot competitor to ChatGPT, Apple could unveil proactive AI enhancements across the board with iOS 18 spanning Siri, Messages, Spotlight Search, Apple Music, Keynote, Xcode, and more.
To power some of its AI capabilities, Apple is said to be exploring partnerships with Google and Baidu which would provide the backend for cloud processing of select AI features like text generation and summarization. Apple remains committed to developing an in-house AI model that would run completely on-device, making it more suitable for smaller and quicker tasks.
