Data AnalysisConsumer FacingVerified
Reviewed and published by trentmaziarz, March 18, 2026. Discovered and drafted by our automated research pipeline.
Through its 2021 acquisition of three AI companies under the Shutterstock.AI subsidiary (Pattern89, Datasine, and Shotzr), Shutterstock offers AI tools that analyze the visual and compositional elements of ad creatives and predict their performance before a campaign goes live.
Details
In July 2021, Shutterstock announced the formation of Shutterstock.AI and the acquisition of Pattern89, Datasine, and Shotzr. Datasine's AI reviews past campaign performance of digital assets and provides recommendations for optimizing their performance; Shotzr uses human responsiveness to imagery for predictive analysis to ensure customers select the right image for social media campaigns that will resonate with audiences. This capability targets brands and marketing agencies seeking to reduce creative risk before launching campaigns. Whether these tools remain actively marketed as distinct products as of 2025–2026 is unclear and may have been folded into other offerings.
Products affected
Shutterstock Ai
Sources & Evidence
Cite this record
Trace Foundation. (2026). Shutterstock: Through its 2021 acquisition of three AI companies under the Shutterstock.AI subsidiary (Pattern89, Datasine, and Shotzr), Shutterstock offers AI tools that analyze the visual and compositional elements of ad creatives and predict their performance before a campaign goes live (data as of 2026-03-18) [Data set record]. AI Trace. https://www.aitrace.org/r/practice/9a8a4c3e-2235-4b00-83fe-46b5ecce5181. Accessed October 13, 2026.
- Stable link
- https://www.aitrace.org/r/practice/9a8a4c3e-2235-4b00-83fe-46b5ecce5181
- Data as of
- March 18, 2026
- Last verified
- December 10, 2025
Other practices by Shutterstock
ModerationShutterstock uses automated AI systems to flag and filter offensive, adult, or policy-violating content from its contributor-submitted library and from AI-generated outputs on its platform. These safeguards also include multi-layered controls to prevent generation of harmful content via its AI tools.RecommendationShutterstock uses a custom-built neural network to power visual similarity search and reverse image search across its entire library, allowing users to find matching content by uploading a photo rather than typing keywords. This applies to both images and video.OtherIn October 2025, Shutterstock launched a formal B2B suite of "AI Services" that go beyond simply licensing content — offering specialized dataset curation, human aesthetic preference labeling (RLHF-style), annotation, and model evaluation pipelines to AI developers building new models.
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