Things are changing fast in stock image/video industry due to increasing number of subscription model sites and introduction of AI image/video generator.  Stock agencies have come and gone in the past too, but we may be experiencing a major shift in the industry.  Already some are reporting huge sales drop on 123RF which used to be one of the major stock photo agency.  Which agencies do you think will disappear in 3 years?

My guess is,
123RF
Alamy
MotionElements
Dreamstime
DepositPhotos
Bigstockphoto
YayImages
EyeEm
ClipDealer
Dissolve
and many other smaller agencies I'm not familiar with.

When stock agencies disappear, they often disappear without paying the amount they owe you.  So, be careful.
https://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/revostock-closed-the-store-with-no-payments-to-contributors/

DepositPhotos won't disappear.

How's the sales on DepositPhotos compared to Shutterstock?

I'll just comment on the agencies I'm contributing to: Alamy, DT, DP, BS and 123RF.

BS is already virtually dead, in deep coma, it will die, no need to wait 3 more years.

123RF will die soon: there's little to no innovation, their platform is garbage, and their sales keep on decreasing.

DP is on the same way, it's a bit better, but most of my regular buyers on DP have already left to other platforms.

DT is not doing so good, but considering their situation, I guess they could be bought by some other agency.

Alamy isn't in the same category. We're not talking exactly around Microstock here, and they are mainly on the editorial market (which is less impacted by AI), and have their own portfolio of clients that are there for some reason (for instance the possibility to get very complex licences and contracts). That being said, I guess they are ripe to be bought to somebody (Getty, or even , if we are crazy, a press agency that would like to expand further than their regular contributors, even though that would be a terrible thing to serious photojournalists).

I'll just comment on the agencies I'm contributing to: Alamy, DT, DP, BS and 123RF.

BS is already virtually dead, in deep coma, it will die, no need to wait 3 more years.

123RF will die soon: there's little to no innovation, their platform is garbage, and their sales keep on decreasing.

DP is on the same way, it's a bit better, but most of my regular buyers on DP have already left to other platforms.

DT is not doing so good, but considering their situation, I guess they could be bought by some other agency.

Alamy isn't in the same category. We're not talking exactly around Microstock here, and they are mainly on the editorial market (which is less impacted by AI), and have their own portfolio of clients that are there for some reason (for instance the possibility to get very complex licences and contracts). That being said, I guess they are ripe to be bought to somebody (Getty, or even , if we are crazy, a press agency that would like to expand further than their regular contributors, even though that would be a terrible thing to serious photojournalists).

Sounds reasonable!

I wouldn't doubt that any of them could be gone in 3-5 years, except Alamy. AL is not the same as the Microstock, they have news business, they have clients and contracts. Also a big reason why Alamy will still be around, and not sold off, is it was just sold to PA media.

Copied from the easiest source, if someone had looked. But I'll save everyone the trouble: Wikipedia

PA Media (formerly the Press Association) is a multimedia news agency, and the national news agency of the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is part of PA Media Group Limited, a private company with 26 shareholders, most of whom are national and regional newspaper publishers. The biggest shareholders include the Daily Mail and General Trust, News UK, and Informa. The group's photography arm, PA Images, has a portfolio comprising more than 20 million photographs online and around 10 million in physical archives dating back 150 years.

Much like Getty, this is a photo archive and news agency.

When the cost of running the business, exceeds the profits, places like DP will bow out. They came in strong, devised a plan to rise to the top, when the initial boom was already over. They will take their profits on the investment and shut down, when it serves their best interest. Some of the other smaller ones, will hang on, until the last money can be earned and shut down.

When stock agencies disappear, they often disappear without paying the amount they owe you.  So, be careful.

Well stated warning. If anyone wants to hang on to the end, that's the risk they will take. Just a gamble, the last payment might never be sent. Never leave more than the minimum in any agency account.

Alamy is a very old and specialized agency with a lot of editorial and great client connections. They will still be around as they are not really microstock.

👍

I also think that Alamy, Dreamstime,123rf and Depositphotos are not going anywhere.

You guys all wrong, all but Getty and Adobe will disappear in max 3 years, the industry is changing almost every quarter because AI. SS disappearance will shake the dying industry. SS business model is now obsolete with many agencies offering the same garbage to the public.

All stock agencies will dissapear in 3 years with maybe the exception of Adobe.
But lets see how the downfall of this industry plays out�..

You guys all wrong, all but Getty and Adobe will disappear in max 3 years, the industry is changing almost every quarter because AI. SS disappearance will shake the dying industry. SS business model is now obsolete with many agencies offering the same garbage to the public.

I'm new to stock. Started last year. Just wanted to. Monetise my images. Don't think I want to make living from images. My main target is to grow on YouTube. But obviously love to make some passive income from images.

With Ai here, people will still love to get real images. I've seen WordPress and Tumblr are selling data to train Ai, I won't be surprised if FB, IG does the same.

I've seen some sales on AS, so probably will focus creating more videos.

People are getting lazy and with AI, more people will prefer to sit at home and generate images rather than going out there.

I'm new to stock. Started last year. Just wanted to. Monetise my images. Don't think I want to make living from images. My main target is to grow on YouTube. But obviously love to make some passive income from images.

With Ai here, people will still love to get real images. I've seen WordPress and Tumblr are selling data to train Ai, I won't be surprised if FB, IG does the same.

I've seen some sales on AS, so probably will focus creating more videos.

People are getting lazy and with AI, more people will prefer to sit at home and generate images rather than going out there.

You are jumping into a sinking boat

I would say 5 to max 7 years is a realistic scenario where only the big agencies like Adobe Stock, Getty / Istock, Alamy, etc. and of course agencies with editorial content will survive.
Perhaps small very specialized agencies (food, architecture, etc.) will survive by license supplying AI model developers.
All others are either too unknown, poorly diversified or have no recognizable long-term strategic orientation. They will disappear.

3 years are to short to see large market changes because of current AI technological barriers. With the exponential technical development, the marketing and thus the awareness of AI models will increase significantly the following coming years. In addition, many users most likely have medium-term plans for stock licensing, so they won't switch next year. I think we will see a strong shift for the first time in 3 years, when image generation will be possible in real time.

In my opinion, there is a scenario in which the big stock agencies could remain profitable in the long term without ending up like Shitterstock as a pure data supplier for AI model developers.
You would need to develop your own AI assistant that allows prompting that combines an AI model with stock or customer's own photos using img2img with inpainting / outpainting.
This would have the advantage of being able to fulfill a wide broad of customer wishes through a high degree of flexibility by using the available high res photos with very low image errors.
You have to get away from the rigid old concept of a pure image database.
I have a design suite platform like Canvas in my mind but with focus on images, 3d and videos.

Let's take the example of a small car repair shop that wants to create a customer offer for cheap winter tire and oil changes as an advertisement for Christmas.
The marketing manager has an in oil covered smiling Santa in mind who is changing the tires in the car shop garage.
He could either take his own photo of his own garage and then pick out a Santa and integrate it into the photo in real time using an inpaint command, or he could use a prompt command to display a garage and a Santa separately, pick out suitable ones and then merge them into one picture. He could leave copy space free for text or his own logo, etc. 

The advantage would be the extremely high individual flexibility in comparison to current AI image generators.
Agencies need to integrate AI in a clever way.
There is no way around it. They have to invest money to remain profitable in the long term. And only the big ones can do that.
I would bet heavily on Adobe Stock to expand in this direction.
They actually have a lot of expertise in this area with their software design suite.
So integrating stock photos into Photoshop was a smart first step. But Photoshop is too complex for the normal user so they have to replace it with an AI assistant.

Quote from: Andrej.S. on February 29, 2024, 04:26

I would say 5 to max 7 years is a realistic scenario where only the big agencies like Adobe Stock, Getty / Istock, Alamy, etc. and of course agencies with editorial content will survive.
Perhaps small very specialized agencies (food, architecture, etc.) will survive by license supplying AI model developers.
All others are either too unknown, poorly diversified or have no recognizable long-term strategic orientation. They will disappear.

3 years are to short to see large market changes because of current AI technological barriers. With the exponential technical development, the marketing and thus the awareness of AI models will increase significantly the following coming years. In addition, many users most likely have medium-term plans for stock licensing, so they won't switch next year. I think we will see a strong shift for the first time in 3 years, when image generation will be possible in real time.

In my opinion, there is a scenario in which the big stock agencies could remain profitable in the long term without ending up like Shitterstock as a pure data supplier for AI model developers.
You would need to develop your own AI assistant that allows prompting that combines an AI model with stock or customer's own photos using img2img with inpainting / outpainting.
This would have the advantage of being able to fulfill a wide broad of customer wishes through a high degree of flexibility by using the available high res photos with very low image errors.
You have to get away from the rigid old concept of a pure image database.
I have a design suite platform like Canvas in my mind but with focus on images, 3d and videos.

Let's take the example of a small car repair shop that wants to create a customer offer for cheap winter tire and oil changes as an advertisement for Christmas.
The marketing manager has an in oil covered smiling Santa in mind who is changing the tires in the car shop garage.
He could either take his own photo of his own garage and then pick out a Santa and integrate it into the photo in real time using an inpaint command, or he could use a prompt command to display a garage and a Santa separately, pick out suitable ones and then merge them into one picture. He could leave copy space free for text or his own logo, etc. 

The advantage would be the extremely high individual flexibility in comparison to current AI image generators.
Agencies need to integrate AI in a clever way.
There is no way around it. They have to invest money to remain profitable in the long term. And only the big ones can do that.
I would bet heavily on Adobe Stock to expand in this direction.
They actually have a lot of expertise in this area with their software design suite.
So integrating stock photos into Photoshop was a smart first step. But Photoshop is too complex for the normal user so they have to replace it with an AI assistant.

People will need no agencies for that, it will be free applications available that will do everything for free. SS is charging a customer for something the customer can get for free in many applications today. Imagine in one or two years.
SS is a sinking boat like most of today available agencies.

Well, I don't think such AI assistance tools will be available completely free, that's not a viable business model in the long term.
There would be also no API connection to the databases.

I think agencies could market their inventory better with AI. About 80% of their inventory is completely unused and hasn't been bought once. This is often because keyword searches are extremely imprecise. I mean there are already hundreds of millions of images that are just rotting away somewhere on the server because often they just don't show up at the top of the search rankings, even though many of them could also be in demand.

They should develop like Adobe more into a cloud-based solution with an API connection.

But actually I think the big ones will just promote their own generators because they don't have to pass on any commissions to the contributors, so they can earn the maximum. Probably they know themselves that most buyers don't need outstanding image quality and huge image resolutions.

Like IStock. Just look how they even created an user friendly promt builder with various aspect ratios and inpaint possibility:
https://www.istockphoto.com/ai/generation/about

It's like I already said many times before, the prompting will become so much easier in the future.