Reuters reported that Apple has reached an agreement with the digital image platform Shutterstock to purchase licenses for its images for use in training its artificial intelligence models.
The deal is estimated to be between 25 and 50 million dollars and was signed in the months following the release of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, according to Reuters.
It is rumored that many other major technology companies have made similar agreements with Shutterstock, including Meta, Google, and Amazon.
On another note, previous reports indicated that Apple was negotiating with media outlets to obtain permission to use their articles in training its own artificial intelligence models.
Companies specializing in developing artificial intelligence tools, such as OpenAI, initially relied on training their models on data available online, which led to copyright violations. Therefore, these companies are seeking deals to obtain licenses for content officially and legally.
Companies that own repositories of various forms of content have benefited from the desire of technology companies to access data to train their artificial intelligence models, including the digital image platform Shutterstock.
In the race to acquire content, The New York Times claimed that Meta sought to acquire the famous American publishing house “Simon & Schuster” to access its content published for nearly a century in books and publications.
Apple aims to integrate artificial intelligence features into all its services, applications, and operating systems on its devices, just like competing companies do currently. The company aims to develop internal solutions rather than rely on external parties.
