Shutterstock and ITU’s AI for Good Collaborate to Advance Responsible AI

Shutterstock, Inc., a leading global creative platform for transformative brands, and digital media and marketing companies, today announced a global partnership with AI for Good to support the development of ethical AI models, tools, products and solutions. AI for Good is organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialised agency for information and communication technologies, in partnership with 40 UN Sister Agencies and co-convened with Switzerland. The goal of AI for Good is to identify practical applications of AI to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and scale those solutions for global impact. As part of this collaboration, Shutterstock will deliver a keynote address at the upcoming AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, Switzerland, taking place July 6-7th. 

“As we look to the future of AI integration, we have a responsibility to understand what this means for developers, users and communities. Shuttterstock’s presentation at the Summit will demonstrate their commitment to solving many of the issues involved with human machine collaboration,” said Frederic Werner, head of strategic engagement, ITU AI for Good, “We believe our collaboration with Shutterstock will inspire our community to both learn about this tech and consider the impacts when creating processes, policies and procedures for integration.” 

Shutterstock holds a strong position in creative and tech innovation, using DALL-E 2 to power its own AI Image Generator and having recently announced partnerships with NVIDIA, Open AI, Meta, LG Research and other tech industry leaders to develop foundational generative AI tools and standards for creators. The company was the first to create a 'Contributors Fund' to compensate artists and creators whose work helped train its AI models. Shutterstock’s high-quality content library is enriched with vast metadata that leads the industry in size, diversity and annotation - making it unrivalled for training AI capabilities. 

“Our collaboration with AI for Good is an important element in our commitment to advancing development and use of ethical AI tools and solutions,” said Sejal Amin, chief technology officer at Shutterstock. “As a critical partner in driving policy, procedures, and best practices for responsible AI at a global scale, we look forward to working with AI for Good to support their efforts as we continue to lay the groundwork for industry standards that recognize the contributions of artists and creators in addition to those of developers and technologists.” 

The Shutterstock AI Image Generator, available for use globally in every language the site offers, uses text-to-image technology to convert prompts into high-definition, ethically created visuals ready for licensing. Prior to the AI Image Generator, Shutterstock launched The Create Fund as part of its deep commitment to ensuring the content across its comprehensive content marketplace, including content being used to train generative AI tools, is representative of a globally diverse world. Through The Create Fund, Shutterstock provides historically excluded artists with financial and professional support to help close access gaps, fill content gaps, and further diversity and inclusion within its content library and contributor network. 

Shutterstock chief technology officer, Sejal Amin and sr. director of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science Alessandra Sala will deliver a keynote presentation on the AI for Good stage titled “Blending ART + SCIENCE: A Human Approach Towards the Future of Creativity.” Shutterstock will also sponsor and judge the conference’s AI for Good Prize, a competition for global creators of AI Art.The AI for Good Global Summit anticipates 3,000 business, government, technology, nonprofit, and startup participants from 182 countries.