David Brooks
The AI Flood Nobody Stopped: Adobe Stock Hits 47% Synthetic
Here's my take: I've seen tech platforms make bad calls before, but Adobe's handling of AI-generated content on Stock might be the most brazenly self-destructive move I've witnessed in enterprise media.
April 2025. German photographer Robert Kneschke analyzes metadata from millions of Adobe Stock files and confirms what everyone suspected: 47.85% of the catalog is AI-generated.
This isn't an estimate. Between January 2023 and April 2025, Adobe approved over 300 million synthetic images.
The flood timeline:
- March 2023: Adobe launches Firefly, opens floodgates to AI content on Stock
- October 2024: Independent research confirms 40% of catalog is synthetic
- April 2025: Kneschke documents 47.85%—nearly half
- January 2026: EyeEm, a Stock competitor that banned AI, shuts down operations
Ten months later, Adobe still hasn't released official figures.
Let's be real: platforms chose volume over quality because volume generates commission revenue regardless of whether it cannibalizes the creator ecosystem. A professional photographer uploads 50 images per month after days of work. A Midjourney user generates 500 in an afternoon. Adobe gets paid either way—but only one destroys the market.
What This Means for Your Business: When 'Stock' Becomes Disposable
If you're a marketing director or creative agency purchasing stock imagery, you might think this AI flood is great news—prices drop, selection explodes. Short-term, you're right.
The elephant in the room is what happens when 80% of Adobe Stock looks identical because it's all trained on the same datasets. I've been tracking the enterprise creative sector for over a decade, and I can tell you: brand differentiation dies when everyone's pulling from the same synthetic well.
Kaptur Research projects the $4.65 billion stock photography market will lose $232M to $698M annually due to AI substitution. That's 15% of the total market.
Breakdown by segment (Kaptur 2025 data):
| Segment | 2024 Size | Projected Loss | % Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial photography | $2.1B | $315M | -15% |
| Digital illustration | $890M | $223M | -25% |
| Vectors/icons | $720M | $180M | -25% |
| Stock video | $940M | $0 | 0% (not yet saturated) |
What survives: niches AI can't replicate well. Action sports photography. Documented real events. Authentic portraits with signed releases. What's dead: everything generic. "Smiling woman with laptop," "diverse team in modern office," "sunset on beach"—concepts Midjourney generates in 30 seconds that represented 60% of stock sales.
Here's what this actually means for you: if your brand relies on stock imagery for authenticity, start building direct relationships with photographers now. When the synthetic tsunami peaks and everything looks the same, you'll pay a premium for human-created work—but the photographers who offered it will be gone.
85,000 Creators Watched Their Income Evaporate—Here's the Data
Behind the "47%" are 85,000 human contributors to Adobe Stock whose sales dropped 50% to 90% in 18 months.
Maria, a Spanish photographer with 12 years in stock, posted in a forum that she went from $1,800/month to $320. "My urban landscape photos used to sell well. Now they're buried under thousands of AI variations of the same concept."
Kaptur Research data confirms the pattern:
| Metric | Data |
|---|---|
| Illustrators who lost direct client work | 26% |
| Professionals with significant income reduction | 37% |
| Projected annual losses (global $4.65B market) | $232M to $698M |
A UK-based photographer calculated his RPD (revenue per download) fell from $0.33 to $0.08 between 2023 and 2025. Same effort, one-quarter the return.
Reaction on communities like Blind and TheLayoff.com is uniform: "Adobe turned us into competition for bots that don't pay rent or eat."
EyeEm shut down in January 2026. Fotolia (acquired by Adobe in 2015) was already history.
Adobe, Shutterstock, Getty: The Industry-Wide Choice That Backfired
Adobe isn't alone. The race to monetize AI ran over the entire industry.
Shutterstock: Launched AI generator in November 2022 (first mover). Signed deal with OpenAI to train DALL-E with their catalog in exchange for "contributor compensation." Photographers report receiving pennies.
Getty Images: Sued Stability AI in February 2023 for using their images to train models without permission. Then launched their own AI generator in September 2023. (Pure corporate contradiction.)
iStock (Getty-owned): Allows AI content since March 2024. Contributors report 60% sales drop in generic categories.
Platform differences:
- Adobe Stock: No AI upload limits, lax moderation
- Shutterstock: 500 AI/month limit per contributor, mandatory tagging (not always enforced)
- Getty: Requires "licensed content training," accepts massive volume anyway
Result: all major platforms are 35% to 50% synthetic. Those that resisted (like EyeEm, which banned AI) went bankrupt from lack of volume.
After years covering the enterprise sector, this is the first time I've seen platforms destroy their own creator communities this coldly. Adobe prioritized monetizing the AI boom over protecting the contributors who built Stock for 15 years. Every approved AI image generates commission, regardless of whether it cannibalizes real photographer sales.
(I haven't had access to Adobe's internal metrics, but the public numbers tell the story: volume up, quality and creator loyalty down.)
Survival Strategies: How Photographers Are Fighting Back
Those who survive are pivoting fast:
Strategy 1: Ultra-specific niches Lucia, a food photographer in Barcelona, abandoned generic stock. She now sells exclusive packs of "regional Spanish dishes photographed in real restaurants" at $200/pack. AI can't replicate certified authenticity.
Strategy 2: Alternative platforms Crestock, Scopio, Wirestock (aggregator distributing to multiple AI-free platforms). Lower reach, better revenue share, zero synthetic competition.
Strategy 3: Direct clients 43% of photographers surveyed by Kaptur are pursuing direct contracts with marketing agencies. "If I'm competing with AI, I'd rather it be on projects where the client values human creative direction."
Strategy 4: Add services From "I sell photos" to "photography + retouching + brand consulting." The value is no longer in the image, but in the process.
What doesn't work: continuing to upload generic photos to Adobe Stock hoping 2023 returns.
That market is dead.
Conclusion
The stock photography industry didn't collapse because of AI—it collapsed because platforms chose to monetize the tsunami instead of protecting their creators.
Adobe Stock is 47% synthetic and counting. Shutterstock, Getty, iStock followed the same playbook. 85,000 photographers lost 50% to 90% of passive income. $698M in projected annual losses.
If you're a stock photographer: pivot now or accept that your photos will compete with bots generating 500 variations per hour at zero cost.
If you're a buyer: enjoy the low prices while they last. When 80% is synthetic and everything looks the same, you'll seek authenticity again—but the photographers who offered it won't be there.
