Getty Images' board voted on 30 June to walk away from its $3.7bn takeover of Shutterstock, its largest rival, after Britain's Competition and Markets Authority demanded Shutterstock divest its editorial business as a condition of clearance — a remedy the parties would not accept, despite US antitrust approval in February. The agreement lapsed in early July.

For Getty, which licenses photographs, video and a proprietary archive covering roughly 160,000 news, sport and entertainment events through the Getty Images, iStock and Unsplash brands, the consequences were financial rather than strategic. The deal's failure triggered a special mandatory redemption on Getty's $628.4m of 10.500% senior secured notes due 2030, cost the company a $162m cash benefit the merger would have delivered, and prompted S&P Global Ratings to cut its credit rating from B to CCC+. Those notes were only settled and closed as part of an exchange offer that the merger was meant to take out. The board says it will retain an adviser on financing alternatives.

The business is not what broke

Getty's revenue rose 1.1% year on year in the first quarter to $226.6m, and 4.5% for full-year 2025 to $981.3m. Gross margin slipped from 73.1% to 66.8% and the company lost $206.1m last year, but this is not a collapsing top line. Getty also largely lost its landmark copyright case against image-generator Stability AI, when the English High Court ruled in November 2025 that AI model weights are not a 'copy' of training images; an appeal was granted in December.

Shutterstock is the genuine substitution casualty. The marketplace, which licenses images, footage, music and 3D models under the Shutterstock, Envato, Pond5 and TurboSquid brands, reported second-quarter revenue of $221.8m, down 17%, with content revenue down 17% on weak new-customer acquisition and a $163.4m non-cash goodwill impairment producing a $155.9m net loss. Gross margin fell from 60.3% to 57.7%. Management cancelled the 6 August earnings call and will issue no guidance for the rest of 2026, having already cut over $70m of annualised costs with $60m more targeted by year-end.

Verdict on the business: CONFIRMS at Shutterstock, CONTRADICTS at Getty.

The software names went the other way

Adobe, the $105bn maker of Photoshop, Illustrator and Acrobat, is the name most often cast as generative AI's victim. Its revenue growth has accelerated three quarters running — 10.5%, then 12.0%, then 12.7% to $6.618bn — and AI-first annual recurring revenue tripled past $500m, with its Firefly image generator nearing $300m and free creative users above 90 million. The soft spot is pricing, not seats: Adobe deferred planned second-half Creative Cloud price rises, which accounts for roughly half its reduced recurring-revenue growth expectation. Operating margin fell from 35.9% to 33.8%. It also closed a $1.9bn all-cash purchase of search-analytics firm Semrush in April.

Figma, the browser-based collaborative design platform that listed last year, grew revenue 48.2% to $370.1m, its third straight quarter of acceleration, with existing customers spending 36% more than a year earlier and full-year guidance raised $40m. It still fell 16.5% after hours on 5 August because third-quarter guidance implies barely 1% sequential growth and reported operating expenses have nearly doubled to $426.9m, producing a $117.3m operating loss.

Chegg, the shrunken online-homework service, is the arithmetic curiosity: revenue down 50.7% to $51.8m, yet adjusted EBITDA of $9.1m, $6.4m of free cash flow and $38.5m of net cash against a $102.5m market value.

Where the multiples sit

Adobe: 15.2x trailing and 10.9x forward earnings, 10.8x enterprise value to EBITDA, a 10.1% free-cash-flow yield, against consensus for 12.0% revenue growth this year and 9.1% next. Getty: 0.19x sales looks cheap, but 17.6x trailing enterprise value to EBITDA on $183m of equity says the stock is a leveraged option on refinancing. Shutterstock: forward price-to-sales of 0.28x sits above trailing 0.24x — the market stating outright that revenue shrinks from here — despite a 40.6% free-cash-flow yield and 0.60x book value. Figma: 7.72x forward sales, down from 8.86x trailing. Valuation verdict: possible dislocation at Adobe; justified de-rating at Shutterstock and Figma; INCONCLUSIVE at Getty, where equity value depends on a bond negotiation.

Against cybersecurity software, which averaged roughly +7% over the same 30 days, Adobe led and Figma matched. Whatever is happening to the stock-media libraries, it is not happening to the creative-software vendors.

The setup

Where it stands — Getty and Shutterstock have lost roughly half their value on a failed merger and a forced bond redemption, not on licensing collapse.

Would confirm — Shutterstock full-year revenue landing near the consensus $783.6m, and Getty announcing refinancing terms on the $628.4m notes.

Would invalidate — Getty's next quarter showing licensing revenue down more than 5% year on year, making AI substitution the cause after all.

Watch next — Shutterstock's promised strategic update after its cancelled 6 August call; Adobe's third-quarter results in September.

Valuation — Adobe 15.2x trailing / 10.9x forward earnings; Shutterstock 0.24x trailing sales versus 0.28x forward; Getty 17.6x EV/EBITDA.