Announced December 9, this comes along in a long line of WordPress VIP technology partnerships this year, Shutterstock Announces Integration with WordPress, Offering Real-Time Smart Image Recommendations to Help Creatives Publish at Lightning Speed: “The WordPress plugin provides Smart Image Recommendations that will automatically suggest relevant images based on entered text. If users like an image presented in the Smart Image Recommendation carousel, they can insert it into the post directly. Alternatively, users have the option to explore other images in the Shutterstock library or upload an image from local files or WordPress Media Library.” I know a Shutterstock plugin isn’t brand new, and honestly haven’t used it because as you can see we are relative image-free here, but the recommendation tool sounds useful – like professional Giphy.

I was able to connect with Shutterstock and get a few quick questions answered as well.

Is the WordPress partnership a technical partnership exclusively with WordPress.com/WordPress VIP or does it also encompass the WordPress.org (open source) project in some way as well?

The existing technical partnership is exclusive to WordPress VIP; however, the Shutterstock plugin is compatible with both WordPress VIP and non-VIP WordPress. Basically, it’s available to anyone in the WordPress.org library. We became a WPVIP Featured Technology Partner to extend their Enterprise customers’ access to the plugin and advance their storytelling.

Will there be an update to the ShutterStock plugin with new features?

Yes, we will continue to enhance the plugin as new features become available. With the WordPress integration, we launched Smart Image Recommendation, an industry innovation and new functionality for our API that can shorten publishing time, while increasing the quality and relevance of visuals.

Will Shutterstock be integrated somehow into Jetpack or remain a standalone solution?

At the moment, it will remain as a standalone solution.

Back to my commentary, not sure what pull VIP has with partners with regards to the project but it seems good things can happen.