With artificial intelligence becoming more widespread and incorporated into so many aspects of our lives today, we’ve spent a lot of time considering what that means for Storyblocks, our members, and our artists, particularly with generative AI content and broader AI usage. We know this is a top of mind topic for many of you and that it’s important to clarify Storyblocks’ AI policies.
Zero generative AI content policy
While we see practical use cases for generative AI video, audio, and images, we do not accept generative content submissions into our library. There are many reasons for this, including the lack of attribution many models use and the fact that our members have told us that they value the authenticity of human-made content by real artists that they find on Storyblocks.
When you download stock assets from the Storyblocks library, you can rest assured that you’re getting authentic, licensed, original content made by a real person and directly supporting artists across the world. If you see or suspect that an asset in our library has been created via artificial intelligence, please use the Report an Error form so our team can investigate.
If this changes in the future, we are committed to clearly distinguishing AI-generated assets from artist-made content. We believe in full transparency when it comes to AI so you can make informed choices in the content you use.
Where AI powers our product today
When it comes to artificial intelligence at large, we believe it’s an incredible resource for creatives and can help all of us work more efficiently.
Inside our AI Toolkit
The tools inside our AI Toolkit are powered by artificial intelligence to help creators maximize creative control and deliver high-quality videos faster than ever. The assets you create with these tools are exclusively yours, and are never added into the library.
- AI Video Editing: This tool is powered by Runway’s Aleph to enable you to customize, restyle, and adapt any footage clip in our library, from changing out backgrounds to removing objects, saving you valuable time compared to manually editing assets to fit your needs.
- AI Voiceover: Powered by ElevenLabs, this tool gives you the ability to instantly generate narration using Text to Speech, re-record or fill in missed words with Clone My Voice, or transform a voice recording into a different speech style with Voice Changer. AI Voiceover helps you keep your videos consistent and costs low with faster turnaround.
- AI Image Generator: Create a custom visual with Image Generator and Runway’s Gen4 image model. Just describe the subject, mood, style, and composition, upload up to 3 reference images, and hit generate to bring it to life.
- AI Video Generator: Running on Google’s Veo 3.0 fast model, our Video Generator lets you create clips using a text prompt, or from an image – your own, or one from the Storyblocks library.
For any footage that you modify with our AI Video Editing tool, or create with our Image or Video Generator using assets from our library, the original artist or contributor is compensated.
Improving your search experience
We also utilize AI and machine learning to make our library work better for you.
- Smart searching: Storyblocks’ search incorporates OpenAI’s large language model to show you content that goes beyond your queries and helps you find the right asset faster.
- Surfacing top content: Our library also uses an algorithm that evaluates how new content is performing every four hours and a language learning model that analyzes how members are engaging with content. This makes sure that you’re always seeing the best assets our library has to offer as you’re browsing.
- Conversational search: Our Conversational Search feature utilizes AI to translate what you’re looking for in plain language into precise search queries against our library of stock assets. By using MCP to communicate directly to Anthropic’s Claude, it can handle long conversations while maintaining the context of the original search.
Ethical, transparent data licensing and content use
Today, many AI systems are built on stolen data and content, with no regard to attribution or compensation for the creators. This not only undercuts the hard work of artists, but presents real copyright risks to those who use it.
At Storyblocks, we want to actively push the industry towards a future that values and rewards IP holders while also building next-generation tools that unlock new creative possibilities.
With our data licensing program, we only allow select partners to train their models on content where artists have opted in and given explicit permission. We’ve worked with our partners to create systems to track attribution and make sure there’s fair compensation that shares revenue with these artists and IP holders, treating their work with the same respect we’d want for our own. The features in our AI toolkit are also powered by partners who use ethically-trained models.
Looking towards the future
Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool, there’s no doubt about that. We plan to continue exploring how it can help improve our platform and help creators find or adapt the right content for their projects through meaningful customization.
Art and storytelling has always been about authentic human experiences. It’s how we connect with one another, through genuine moments, real emotions, and unique perspectives.
In a digital-first world, we believe it’s more important than ever to preserve human authenticity through initiatives like Re: Stock. That will continue to be the core part of what Storyblocks offers as we find ways to incorporate transparent AI use that helps remove technical barriers.
