Head of Global Production, SHUTTERSTOCK INC
Aiden Darné, Global Head of Shutterstock Studios
About Aiden Darne
Aiden Darné, Global Head of Shutterstock Studios, has described the company's data licensing business as a significant growth area, stating that large technology companies pay Shutterstock between $25 million and $50 million a day for metadata associated with its images. He noted that this provides a copyright-cleared alternative to scraping the internet for machine learning data. Darné also discussed Shutterstock's approach to generative AI, including the launch of a text-to-3D platform in partnership with Nvidia. He said the company is focused on "ethical AI," aiming to ensure representation and diversity in generated content and to compensate contributors whose work is used for machine learning. Darné has highlighted the role of Shutterstock Studios in producing custom content for brands, such as a campaign for the pharmaceutical company ViiV that created new, documentary-style stock assets of people living with HIV. He has also discussed the use of virtual production technology, including XR stages, for commercial workcars, and described the company's acquisition of GIPHY as part of its expansion beyond its core stock content business.
Transcript (20 segments)
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Michael Bergie0:00
Hi everybody, Michael Bergie with Digiday. Back here at Possible, day two in the afternoon, and I'm happy to have a conversation with Aiden Darne, who's the head of Shutterstock Studios. Global head, right? You're a global man.
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Aiden Darne0:16
Yes indeed.
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Michael Bergie0:17
Where are you from originally? What's your accent?
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Aiden Darne0:19
From the UK, but I lived in America, in New York, for like 13 years, so a while.
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Michael Bergie0:21
So we've corrupted your nice English accent.
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Aiden Darne0:24
Yeah, it's the only thing I've kept. I've seen the benefit of the accent, so I've embraced it still. Oh, Americans love British accents. Like immediately you're 20% more intelligent than everybody else.
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Michael Bergie0:34
Thanks for joining us. Of course. Let's start off with, we're here at Possible. What is it that you're looking to learn here at Possible, and what message are you here to tell the people that you're meeting with?
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Aiden Darne0:47
Amazing. Well, within the business of Shutterstock, we do so much. We're very well known for being a stock provider, but we do so many other things as well. So a big part of it is definitely going out and meeting our clients and embracing all of the conversations around AI and generative technology, which we're at the heart of in a lot of ways. We've got our VIP lounge, we've got a wonderful sponsorship here, so it's been great so far. Lovely to meet lots of clients. But the biggest thing really is to be at the forefront. We describe this generative AI boom as there's going to be some heroes and zeros. The perception is that Shutterstock will be on the zero side, in that it's going to probably eat up a lot of the stock content business. But we're here to really be very proud around the other things that we're doing to actually elevate and embrace all things AI.
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Michael Bergie1:39
I'm surprised to hear you say that the perception is that you'd be on the zero side. So go in a little bit more depth about how generative AI is impacting your business and the content that you put out.
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Aiden Darne1:55
Well, the lowest hanging fruit, the most obvious thing, is that text-to-image exploded overnight and changed everything for photography and for commercial photography and advertising. So for us, as our core business being a stock photo provider and the majority of our revenue and usage of our content is photography, the perception I believe was going to be, wow, this is going to really put you out of business.
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Michael Bergie2:19
So how have you turned that around?
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Aiden Darne2:21
Well, we've acknowledged that task and headwind. We now have within the business a core business which is our content business, the stock side, and then on the other side of the equation we have our growth engines. So we acquired GIPHY recently, that's one thing. Our studio business, which I head up, I can talk through, and of course our data business as well. Overnight we became a very lucrative data provider for very large technology companies to pay us between 25 to $50 million a day for our metadata that's assigned to each image. We have 800 million images for computer learning. It's all copyright cleared for commercial usage. So rather than a large tech company going to scrape the internet for their computer learning with images that's going to create copyright infringements, that was a very different proposition for us now as a business to go to market providing all that data.
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Michael Bergie3:22
How did you come to that? Because it's not readily evident to me that data would be a part of this, and yet everything you just described sounds like, oh yeah, duh. So how do you guys get there?
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Aiden Darne3:34
Each image has upwards of about 140 bits of metadata. That's a lot of data for 800 million images. So of course it's all cleared, it's licensed. We also have a contributor fund so that the contributor that shot the image, if that image is being bought for computer learning, gets paid as well. So an obvious business approach for us, and we could then go to market to sell the data side. And on the other side of the business, I run the studio part, and we'll talk about that next.
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Michael Bergie4:05
Yeah, no, but it's all related.
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Aiden Darne4:07
We specialize in 3D content, 3D production, 3D strategy. So we work with very large marketers to develop a 3D strategy that can completely change how brands are creating and producing global content for the global content calendar. And as part of that, we launched the very first text-to-3D platform a week ago in partnership with NVIDIA. So on the platform, you can go and write 'table' or 'flowers' and it would create a perfect 3D rendering of that text. Then you can use that in an out-of-home campaign or in a TV commercial or whatever you like. We use that as a way to be faster, more creative, more cost efficient in all of the 3D production that we do. So the content side of the business is obviously still doing fine, but we worked intentionally to create and carve out the growth side of the business. We acknowledge Wall Street probably sees Shutterstock as a zero out of the heroes, but we have a whole side of the business that is growing because of all these opportunities.
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Michael Bergie5:25
How do you deal with either watermarking or safeguarding your content so that when it is purchased somewhere it doesn't get into the wrong hands and start getting manipulated? That may not be your specialty, but what does Shutterstock do to safeguard in the age of AI when so much can be manipulated?
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Aiden Darne5:49
That's an incredibly important point. Not just manipulated, but to ensure that there's enough representation and diversity in the content that we are putting forward. That's the richness of all the content we have to ensure that it's not generic white people in every search in text-to-image or text-to-3D or text-to-video even. So we've been at the forefront to make sure that we're creating ethical AI, that's what we've been framing it. And absolutely to the extent of manipulation, that's going to be so important this year. The verified, validated image, or at least to have a tag to acknowledge this is created by AI versus traditionally shot. We're at the forefront of ensuring that all of that content is ethical and definitely ensuring that our contributors are getting paid as well, the photographers that are making the content that's being used for the machine learning.
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Michael Bergie6:44
Wow, sounds like you have a very busy job. Well, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it.
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Aiden Darne6:48
Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Bye-bye.