AI search startup Perplexity has entered a multi-year licensing agreement with Getty Images, allowing the company to display Getty’s visuals across its AI-powered search and discovery tools. The deal marks a significant shift for the fast-growing AI search engine — one that has faced recent controversy over content scraping and copyright infringement — as it moves toward establishing formal, ethical content partnerships.
Perplexity and Getty have quietly collaborated for over a year through Perplexity’s Publishers’ Program, an initiative that shares ad revenue with media organizations whose content surfaces in AI-generated results. The new deal formalizes and expands that partnership, giving Perplexity official access to Getty’s licensed images and metadata.
Unlike traditional AI licensing arrangements, the agreement reportedly doesn’t involve a lump-sum payment, as Perplexity does not train its own foundational models. Instead, the focus is on authenticated image display, attribution, and source linking within Perplexity’s responses — a move aimed at improving both transparency and trust in AI-generated answers.
Perplexity’s collaboration with Getty follows months of criticism from major publishers, including The Wall Street Journal, for using content and accompanying Getty photos without proper permission. The company also faces a lawsuit from Reddit, which accuses Perplexity of “industrial-scale, unlawful scraping” of user content — underscoring the growing legal and ethical tensions around how AI systems source their data.
With the new Getty partnership, Perplexity is signaling a more responsible direction for AI search — one that values consent, attribution, and content integrity.
“This agreement acknowledges the importance of properly attributed content and its value in enhancing AI-powered products,” said Nick Unsworth, Vice President of Strategic Development at Getty Images.
“Attribution and accuracy are fundamental to how people should understand the world in an age of AI,” added Jessica Chan, Head of Content and Publisher Partnerships at Perplexity. “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.”
As AI search tools continue to reshape how information is consumed, Perplexity’s deal with Getty could set an industry precedent — balancing innovation with creator rights and paving the way for ethical AI-driven discovery experiences.
