Getty Images stock surges by 50% after Perplexity AI licensing tie‑up

Getty saw its stock jump 19% on Friday after confirming a multi‑year licensing deal with Perplexity AI.

The agreement allows Perplexity to show creative and editorial content from Getty inside its AI‑powered search products. The terms of the deal were not shared, but it pushed trading volume higher as investors reacted to a rare alignment between a legacy image library and a fast‑moving search startup.

The deal also affects how Perplexity displays visuals going forward, since the company will begin including image credits and links back to the original source pages.

Getty’s vice president of strategic development, Nick Unsworth, said:

“Partnerships such as this support AI platforms to increase the quality and accuracy of information delivered to consumers, ultimately building a more engaging and reliable experience.”

Perplexity recently released an AI patent research agent, which lets users search patents using natural language. This tool is free during beta, while Pro and Max subscribers receive more usage limits and configuration controls.

Getty is presenting this agreement as a way to secure proper attribution in a market where AI platforms often scrape content without credit, per its press announcement.

Perplexity described the deal as one meant to respect image creators. Jessica Chan, Head of Content and Publisher Partnerships at Perplexity, said:

“Attribution and accuracy are fundamental to how people should understand the world in an age of AI. Getty Images shares our belief that the future of AI‑powered discovery requires respecting the creators behind the content. Together, we’re helping people discover answers through powerful visual storytelling while ensuring they always know where that content comes from and who created it.”

Perplexity expands search tools with new AI features

Perplexity runs a search engine that answers questions directly and then points users to original sources on the web. The company also operates an AI browser called Comet, which is free worldwide.

Comet now sits in the same competitive lane as Google and OpenAI, the latter of which recently introduced a new browser called ChatGPT Atlas.

Perplexity says its search reaches beyond basic keyword matching, and a search for “fitness trackers” may surface patents for “activity bands,” “step‑counting watches,” or “health monitoring watches.”

Perplexity promises that its system can also look through academic papers, public code repositories, and other technical documents to locate related work.

Examples given by Perplexity include prompts like, “Are there any patents on AI language learning?” or “Key quantum computing patents since 2024,” after which the system returns relevant filings along with AI‑generated summaries.

Perplexity said patent research is intentionally hard to navigate, and the new tool is meant to simplify the process while maintaining source transparency.

The Getty partnership adds visual sourcing with credits attached, designed to reduce the chaotic “no‑source” style that has defined most AI image use so far.

The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them.