- Visibility32
- Citations2
- Sentiment73
- Site quality67
- AI readiness14
AI assistants name Shutterstock in 33.3% of answers, which is more often than the typical company in its sector, named in 15% of answers. Shutterstock has an overall score of 37 out of 100, ranking 621st of 2,047 companies. Its website passes 2 of 14 technical checks for AI tool readiness.
We asked 15 unbranded questions about the media market: none named Shutterstock. AI assistants named it in 20 of 60 answers (33.3%). The typical media company is named in 15.0% of answers. By how often it is named, Shutterstock ranks 30 of 99 in its sector.
Every dot is a company in the study. Hover one to see it; click to open its report.
This companySame sectorEvery other companyNever named
Five parts, each scored out of 100.
How often AI assistants name the company
How often AI uses the company's own website as a source
How positively AI describes the company
How well built the website's own pages are
How easily AI tools can read and use the website
Visibility is calculated from the answers on this page. How the score is built.
99 companies in this sector. The line on each bar is the typical company.
An answer that names the company
“What pricing models are common among stock media marketplaces serving creative agencies?”
Stock media marketplaces serving creative agencies commonly use a few key pricing models, primarily revolving around the licensing of content and how that content is accessed.
1. Licensing Models:
Royalty-Free (RF): This is a very common model where users pay a one-time fee to use an image multiple times across various projects and platforms, with relatively few restrictions. Despite the "free" in the name, payment is required for the license. The main benefit is cost-effectiveness and flexibility, as the image can be used indefinitely after the initial purchase. However, exclusi …
The AI’s answer as we received it, shortened and not checked for accuracy.
How the mentions in these answers were split between this company and its rivals
Answers naming it, out of answers received
What this website publishes for an AI agent to read, use and buy from, on a scale of six levels.
- 0
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
Level 1: Basic web presence. Two of robots.txt, a sitemap and Link headers are in place.
- Content Signals
The website turns away requests that do not come from a browser. AI agents that say what they are meet the same refusal.
Show every check, for your technical teamHide the checks
- study: 92.0%robots.txtPassed
A valid robots.txt with crawl rules at the site root.
- study: 86.8%SitemapPassed
An XML sitemap listing the pages, ideally referenced from robots.txt.
- study: 0.3%Link headersNot met
Send Link headers such as rel="api-catalog" or rel="describedby" on the homepage.
- study: 5.5%DNS for AI DiscoveryNot present
Advertise agent endpoints with SVCB records under _agents.
- study: 1.9%Markdown negotiationNot met
Return a markdown version when asked with Accept: text/markdown, for example at the CDN.
- study: 25.1%llms.txtNot met
Publish an llms.txt with a short summary and the key links.
- study: 93.4%AI bot rulesPassed
Explicit robots.txt rules for AI crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot.
- study: 1.4%Content SignalsNot met
Add a Content-Signal line for search, ai-input and ai-train to robots.txt.
- study: 0.2%Web Bot AuthNot present
Only relevant if you run your own agents or crawlers: publish a signing key directory.
- study: 0.3%API CatalogNot met
List public APIs in a linkset at /.well-known/api-catalog.
- study: 11.8%OAuth discoveryNot met
Publish OpenID Connect or OAuth server metadata under /.well-known.
- study: 10.3%OAuth Protected ResourceNot met
Serve protected resource metadata at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.
- study: 0.0%auth.mdNot met
Publish an auth.md describing how agents sign in.
- study: 0.2%MCP Server CardNot met
Offer an MCP server and publish its server card under /.well-known.
- study: 0.1%A2A Agent CardNot met
Publish an agent card at /.well-known/agent-card.json.
- study: 0.2%Agent SkillsNot met
Publish a skills index with the main tasks agents can do.
- study: 33.7%WebMCPCould not check
Register key actions such as search or cart as WebMCP tools.
- study: 0.1%ARD manifestNot met
Publish an ai-catalog.json listing every agent interface.
Score 32 of 100 · 97% of checks could run · checked on October 4, 2026 · www.shutterstock.com · 2,047 companies scanned
2 of 14 passed. This list is for your technical team. The percentage is how many companies in the study pass each check.
These 14 checks ran during the audit and are what the AI readiness part of the overall score counts. The scan above ran later and is stricter on Link headers and Markdown, so a check can pass here and not there.
Show the 14 checksHide them
- Passedrobots.txt publishedstudy: 85.0%
- Not metXML sitemapstudy: 73.2%
- Not metHTTP Link headers (RFC 8288)study: 29.0%
- Not metMarkdown content negotiationstudy: 8.3%
- Not metllms.txt publishedstudy: 21.7%
- Not metToken budget (page weight)study: 95.2%
- PassedExplicit AI bot rulesstudy: 13.0%
- Not metAPI Catalog (.well-known/api-catalog)study: 0.2%
- Not metOAuth Authorization Server discoverystudy: 10.1%
- Not metOAuth Protected Resource discoverystudy: 9.3%
- Not metMCP Server Cardstudy: 0.0%
- Not metA2A Agent Cardstudy: 0.0%
- Not metWebMCP toolsstudy: 4.2%
- Not metAgent Skills declaredstudy: 0.0%
This website sets rules for 7 AI crawlers by name. All others follow its general rules.
- GPTBot*blocked
- ClaudeBot*blocked
- Anthropic-AIpartly
- Google-Extendedpartly
- Applebot-Extendedpartly
- Meta-ExternalAgent*blocked
- FacebookBotpartly
- Bytespiderpartly
- CCBot*blocked
- Diffbotpartly
- Omgilibotpartly
- OAI-SearchBot*partly
- Claude-SearchBot*partly
- PerplexityBot*partly
- Applebotpartly
- Amazonbotpartly
- YouBotpartly
- ChatGPT-Userpartly
- Claude-Userpartly
- Perplexity-Userpartly
- DuckAssistBotpartly
- MistralAI-Userpartly
Read from the website’s own rules file (robots.txt). An asterisk marks a crawler the file names. The rest follow its general rules. “Partly” means only some pages are blocked.
How many times each website was listed as a source in these answers
In the study as Consumer brands.
- What pricing models are common among stock media marketplaces serving creative agencies?
- Where can independent graphic designers find free or low-cost stock media options?
- Best practices for incorporating royalty-free music from stock libraries into branded content?
- Do stock media marketplaces offer value for small businesses creating social media ads?
- Where can creative professionals find diverse licensed video clips for marketing campaigns?
- What are alternatives to large stock media platforms for sourcing unique creative assets?
- Why might a downloaded stock image not meet the resolution needed for print projects?
- How do subscription-based stock media platforms compare to pay-per-download services?
- What features should businesses look for when choosing a stock media provider?
- What are the best stock media marketplaces for finding high-quality royalty-free images?
- What should you do if you can't find assets that match a specific style or theme in stock libraries?
- What are the differences between royalty-free and rights-managed stock content for commercial use?
- How can marketers use stock videos to enhance digital ad campaigns?
- Are there affordable options for unlimited downloads of stock photos and videos in the US?
- Is it worth paying for access to a stock asset library if you only need images occasionally?
Columns, left to right: OpenAI, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini. The AI assistants often disagree. Across the study, on 40% of the questions where a company is named, only one of the four names it.
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<a href="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/shutterstock.com"><img src="https://aeo-audit.rezolve.com/us/badges/shutterstock.com.svg" alt="Overall score 37 of 100, US AI Visibility Study 2026" width="280" height="64"></a>