A few weeks ago, an announcement in all relevant media attracted attention: Shutterstock is acquiring the AI-driven music platform Amper Music. What strategy is the American stock media provider pursuing with this acquisition for its future business development? Stan Pavlovsky, CEO of Shutterstock, explains exactly that in an interview with our host Alex Wunschel.
Stan Pavlovsky assumed the position of CEO at stock giant Shutterstock on 1 April 2020 – amidst corona chaos, global economic uncertainties and rapidly changing business environments. Where has Stan Pavlovsky taken the helm of the world’s leading provider of licensed photos, videos and music and what business strategy is he pursuing? Find out in the podcast.
The acquisition of Amper: What role will audio play for Shutterstock in the future?
Amper is a software developed by programmer Drew Silverstein, which allows you to create an arranged song immediately only by specifying style, song length, mood and entering your own musical ideas. Thanks to AI, human emotions, accents and mistakes can be better and better integrated into the artificially generated songs. The takeover of Amper by Shutterstock strengthens the stock supplier in the AI sector significantly.
You know, even with our acquisition of Amper, when you look at it, I had a lot of questions about how does this impact content contributors. And from our perspective, it's not about removing creativity, it's about enhancing creativity.
Instead of searching for the right stock music for audio or video productions, content creators can now produce it on their own thanks to the integration of Amper. The technology, coupled with the global community of music composers and content creators circulating on Shutterstock, is expected to result in faster and easier content creation.
In the podcast Stan Pavlovsky and Alex Wunschel talk about the following topics among others:
- What will be Shutterstock’s future business strategy?
- How do you get into the CEO role when all employees are in the home office?
- How has the stock media industry changed in recent months?
- Will the corona pandemic have a long-term impact on Shutterstock’s business model?
- How is Shutterstock positioning itself against competitors at the moment?
- What are the strategic considerations behind the acquisition of Amper Music?
- What additional services does Amper Music’s AI-based technology enable for Shutterstock?
- What additional target groups does Shutterstock want to tap into?
- Would an investment into virtual models like Shudu be interesting for Shutterstock?
- What ethical questions are raised by artificially generated content and content created on the basis of stock media?
We hope you enjoy listening!
