NEW YORK, June 22, 2026, 07:13 EDT
- Getty Images Holdings Inc. NYSE:GETY jumped in premarket trading after the company said it struck a multi-year display deal with OpenAI tied to ChatGPT.
- The move started near the bottom. GETY last finished at $0.6051, already under NYSE’s minimum price warning.
- Key point still missing: Getty kept financial terms out of the release, so investors have to judge the deal without any numbers on what it could mean for revenue.
Getty Images Holdings Inc. NYSE:GETY jumped in premarket trade Monday after saying its licensed image catalog will show up inside OpenAI’s ChatGPT search and discovery tools.
GETY traded at $1.62 at 7:04 a.m. EDT, jumping 167.72% from its prior close at $0.6051, Stocktwits market data showed. Premarket action—the early, thinner market before the 9:30 a.m. open—can see bigger swings than regular hours.
The news hit with timing that caught the market’s attention. U.S. markets reopened after being shut Friday for Juneteenth, and Getty’s statement dropped Sunday night. Traders now had a new AI licensing headline on a stock that’s already had compliance run-ins with the exchange. NYSE’s calendar for 2026 still shows Juneteenth closing on Friday, June 19.
Getty has a multi-year deal that lets its licensed images show up in OpenAI search and ChatGPT discovery. CEO Craig Peters called licensed visual content “more useful and more trustworthy” for AI search, a clear pitch for using rights-cleared material in AI. GlobeNewswire
The wide move is driving technical action. The $1.62 premarket quote is about 2.7 times above the last close, with 46.64 million shares traded ahead of the open versus a 2.55 million average—about 18 times normal volume before the bell. This isn’t just noise; traders have to reprice GETY after treating it as a penny stock with no margin for missteps.
Getty’s continued listing on the NYSE is in focus after the company disclosed in March it got a written notice from the exchange. Its average closing share price was below $1 over 30 straight trading sessions, according to Getty. A single premarket move doesn’t solve the issue. Getty still has to clear the NYSE’s thresholds for both the closing price and the 30-day average within the cure period.
The financial details of the OpenAI display deal are still a question. The release did not give terms, so the market is laying a bet that archives, news, and cleared images could play a bigger part in AI search. Investing.com pointed out that terms weren’t made public.
Getty’s latest earnings explain why traders jumped on the news. First-quarter revenue came in at $226.6 million, up 1.1% year over year, but creative revenue dropped 4.5%. Adjusted EBITDA fell 12.2% to $61.6 million, using earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization as a rough gauge of operating profit.
Balance-sheet risk is still there. Getty finished Q1 with $96.6 million in cash and $2.0 billion in debt. In April, it pulled $120 million from its revolving credit line to pay a warrant-litigation judgment. CFO Jenn Leyden said Getty is still on track for its “previously stated full year guidance,” but there isn’t much room for misses. Getty Images Newsroom – Getty Images
The Shutterstock deal is a big factor. Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority gave conditional clearance to the Getty-Shutterstock merger, but is still consulting on final steps through June 24, the regulator’s case page shows. The tie-up leaves Shutterstock NYSE:SSTK, Getty’s closest listed peer, exposed to the same theme behind Monday’s move—if scale in stock visual content gains value or loses its edge as AI search grows.
Risk for the stock is clear. If the OpenAI deal turns out to mostly mean display rights, not steady revenue, shares could pull back after a run-up in the premarket with a lot of retail trading. A close above $1 would look better, but the company still has to prove AI distribution can pull its weight against weaker results in creative imagery, higher debt, and rivals like Shutterstock, Adobe, and private players like Canva.
