Getty Images and six of its U.S. subsidiaries filed, on October 21, 2026, for protection under chapter 11, a procedure that allows a company to reorganize under court supervision. Before the Delaware District Bankruptcy Court, the filing is part of a pre‑negotiated process, whose plan returns the company to members of the Getty family and to Koch Equity Development.
The link with artificial intelligence has become a media focus. On June 21, Getty announced a multi‑year agreement with OpenAI to have its licensed images appear in ChatGPT’s search functions, and the stock price jumped to 145 % according to Bloomberg. On October 13, Mediaweek headlined “Getty Images plans bankruptcy as AI shakes up stock photos”. However, the information memorandum provided to creditors attributes the bankruptcy to other causes.
Three “non‑operational” causes according to the filing
Dated October 20, the document attributes the cash drain to three events. Cash fell from roughly $90.2 million at the end of 2025 to about $50 million at the filing date. The first stems from litigation inherited from the 2022 IPO, carried out via a merger with a SPAC, a listed shell company intended to acquire a business. Holders of warrants secured a court award totaling over $200 million in judgments and interest, plus $35 million in defense costs.
The second is the failed merger with Shutterstock, signed on January 6, 2025. In its final report of May 15, 2026, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) required the divestiture of all of Shutterstock’s editorial business. Getty notified the termination on July 7, after spending over $100 million in fees and $43.6 million in interest and commissions on debt raised for the deal. The third is the debt burden itself: $1.46 billion of financial debt, about $154 million in annual interest and a total annual service estimated at $239 million.
Generative AI, a factor among others
The filing acknowledges structural changes, including the arrival of generative AI, felt “primarily” on iStock, the brand aimed at small‑and‑medium businesses, and among agency clients. In these two segments, the number of buying customers fell from roughly 835,000 in 2022 to about 636,000 over the twelve months ending June 2026, a decline of approximately 24 %. Active subscribers dropped from 321,000 to 240,000 in a year.
Getty considers these trends “manageable” and believes they would not “by themselves” have made chapter 11 necessary. The group reports roughly $978 million in revenue and $307 million of adjusted EBITDA for the twelve months ended June. It also markets its licenses to AI companies, for model training and display in ChatGPT and Perplexity, as a growing revenue source, without quantifying the amount.
The plan also provides that unsecured claims, including those of contributors, will be paid in full or left untouched. Getty says it works with more than 600,000 contributors, including over 84,000 exclusives. The creditors’ vote is set for November 30 and a confirmation hearing is sought for December 14. Shareholders, however, receive nothing: all shares will be cancelled without compensation.
The lawsuit against Stability AI continues
In the United Kingdom, the High Court issued its judgment on November 4, 2025. Judge Joanna Smith dismissed the secondary copyright infringement allegation and found only a single trademark infringement, related to iStock and Getty watermarks reproduced by older versions of Stable Diffusion. She described the findings as “historic and of extremely limited scope”. According to the firm Slaughter and May, Getty secured permission in December to appeal the copyright aspect.
In the United States, the lawsuit filed in San Francisco in August 2025 is ongoing. Under the revised schedule of August 18, 2026, the discovery phase ends on November 20, 2026, and the jury trial is set for January 18 to February 9, 2028. If the plan is confirmed, Getty expects to exit the proceeding by year‑end as a private company, subject to regulatory approvals.
