Shares of online stock photography company (NYSE: SSTK) skyrocketed on Tuesday after the company reported financial results for the third quarter of 2023. The stock had been down as much as 36% year to date and was hitting three-year lows as the market fretted about the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI). However, the company is actually benefiting from the trend, as seen in Q3 results. And that's why the stock was up a whopping 21% as of 10:45 a.m. ET.

The Q3 headline numbers weren't necessarily great for Shutterstock -- surprising given the market's reaction. The company's revenue of $233 million was up 14% year over year, which was good. But its subscriber count fell to 551,000, down 5,000 from the previous quarter. Paid downloads were also down.

Shutterstock made up the difference with higher revenue per subscriber and per download. Moreover, the company now shares its image data with AI partners to train their generative AI models. This generated over $45 million in Q3 revenue, up from $17.3 million in the previous quarter and up from a paltry $1.5 million in the prior-year period.

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Source Fool.com