Perplexity and Getty Images announced a multiyear agreement granting the AI search company rights to display Getty images across its search and discovery tools. The companies said Getty's API would be integrated into the content workflow and that Perplexity would improve image credits and links to original sources. Financial terms were withheld. A person familiar with the agreement told TechCrunch that it was a new arrangement rather than a traditional lump-sum license, and that Getty had participated for over a year in Perplexity's publisher revenue-sharing program. The deal followed accusations from news organizations that Perplexity had scraped or reproduced their material, including a Wall Street Journal article accompanied by a Getty photograph.

A license establishes a visible border around images that search interfaces previously treated as readily available components of an answer. The announcement leaves the status of earlier displays and any compensation for them unaddressed, so permission begins at an uncertain point in the archive. Attribution also performs two jobs here. It directs a user toward the photographer or publisher while giving Perplexity evidence of a formal content relationship. Getty gains distribution and contractual control. Perplexity gains a cleaner path through a field of copyright complaints. The practical test will appear in ordinary results, where pictures often register before citations do. Each licensed photograph should arrive with a readable credit and a working source link placed beside the image.