Getty Images is buying Shutterstock to create a $3.7 billion visual content company.

The merger comes at a time when companies that use still images are facing increased competition from images generated by artificial intelligence.

The companies said Tuesday that they have complementary portfolios and that a merger will provide customers with a broader array of still imagery, video, music, 3D and other media.

“With the rapid rise in demand for compelling visual content across industries, there has never been a better time for our two businesses to come together,” Getty Images CEO Craig Peters said in a prepared statement.

Peters will serve as CEO of the combined business.

“We are excited by the opportunities we see to expand our creative content library and enhance our product offering to meet diverse customer needs,” Shutterstock CEO Paul Hennessy said.

Getty Images shareholders will own about 54.7% of the combined company at closing and Shutterstock stockholders will own approximately 45.3%.

The combined company will operate as Getty Images, and will continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the “GETY” ticker symbol.

Job openings rise to 8.1M in November

U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in November, showing companies are still looking for workers even as the labor market has cooled overall.

Openings rose to 8.1 million in November, the most since February and up from 7.8 million in October, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. They were down from 8.9 million a year earlier and a peak of 12.2 million in March 2022 as the economy was roaring back from COVID-19 lockdowns. But they still exceed pre-pandemic levels.

Economists had expected job openings to fall slightly in November.

Layoffs rose slightly in November, and the number of people quitting their jobs fell, suggesting that Americans are less confident in their ability to find better jobs elsewhere.

Openings were up in professional and business services, a broad category that includes managerial and technical workers, and in finance and insurance. They fell in the information industry, which includes publishers and telecommunications companies.

The American labor market has cooled from the red hot hiring of 2021-2023. Employers added 180,000 jobs a month in 2024 through November, not bad but down from 251,000 in 2023, 377,000 in 2022 and a record 604,000 in 2021.

Nvidia slips after CES speech leaves investors wanting to hear more

Nvidia Corp. shares slid on Tuesday after a wide-ranging product presentation by CEO Jensen Huang failed to propel the artificial intelligence chipmaker to new heights.

The stock fell as much as 6% to $140.44 in New York, marking the biggest intraday decline since Oct. 15.

Though the Nvidia’s latest announcements gave an upbeat view of the company’s long-range prospects, there wasn’t as much near-term upside as some investors had sought. “Nvidia’s announcements today are significant, but long-tailed,” Stifel Financial Corp. said in a report.

Huang offered a vision for how AI will spread throughout the economy. The company wants its products to be the heart of a future tech world with a billion humanoid robots, 10 million automated factories, and 1.5 billion self-driving cars and trucks.

Compiled from Bloomberg and Associated Press reports.