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Are Adobe Stock’s Best-Selling Photos Now Born from AI Prompts? 🤖📸
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Are Adobe Stock’s Best-Selling Photos Now Born from AI Prompts? 🤖📸

Spoiler: almost two-thirds of last week’s chart-toppers never saw the inside of a camera.

By Admin
8/29/2025
3 min read
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1. Where the Numbers Come From

  • Source — Adobe Stock public Top Sellers list
  • Dates — 16–22 June 2025
  • Asset filter — Photo only (illustrations & vectors excluded)
  • Sample size — 120 ranked items
  • AI flag — Adobe tags every Firefly/Midjourney-style upload with is_gentech = true

The full scrape sits in a tidy Excel workbook — pivot tables ready to slice.

2. The Jaw-Dropping Stat

| Category                  | Count | Share   |
|---------------------------|------:|--------:|
| Total top-seller photos   |   120 | 100 %   |
| AI-generated photos       |    74 |  61.7 % |
| Human-shot photos         |    46 |  38.3 % |
Three out of every five “photos” that earned the most downloads last week were synthetic.
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3. What Exactly Is Selling?

3.1 AI-Native Crowd-Pleasers

  • Crystal & sparkle overlays — perfect, refraction-heavy fantasies
  • Pastel matte coffee-shop scenes — blemish-free lifestyle vibes
  • Epic misty trails & neon skylines — cinematic gradients dialled up to 11

3.2 Human-Shot Hold-Outs

  • Macro textures — real wood grain, stone, rust (still tricky for models)
  • Authentic lens-flare & bokeh packs — photographers’ evergreen cash cows

3.3 Top 5 Keywords (all 120 files)

design, texture, background, light, technology – a shopping list for every graphic designer on a deadline.

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4. Why AI Is Winning the Microstock Race

  1. Volume at speed — One prompt ⇒ dozens of sellable variants in minutes.
  2. Cost efficiency — No models, studios, or travel bills.
  3. Fantasy on tap — Impossible light, flawless subjects, infinite colourways.
  4. Search momentum — Adobe’s own docs admit Firefly images can receive a relevance nudge.

5. What This Means for Creators & Buyers

🎯 Do This⚠️ Watch Out ForBlend AI art and real photos in one portfolio.Oversupply of generic AI backdrops — royalties thin out fast.Shoot (or prompt) niche realism: local culture, branded products, regulated industries.Mis-labelling AI as “photo” risks account strikes.Use AI renders as pre-visualisations for clients before a real shoot.Buyers: double-check usage rights when “faces” or “logos” appear perfect — they might be synthetic.

6. Get the Raw Data & Spot Your Own Trends

I’ve packaged the entire dataset — including keyword lists and an AI-vs-Human slicer — in an Excel file. It lets you:

  • Rank by revenue to see where AI dominance starts.
  • Filter by keyword to discover micro-niches.
  • Track week-over-week shifts (fresh sheet drops every Monday).

👉 Download it on Gumroad ( https://microstockinsights.gumroad.com/l/AdobeStockWeeklyTopSellerPhotosAnalysis-Jun162025 )

7. Takeaway

The border between photo and illustration on stock sites has officially blurred. If the current trajectory holds, AI-generated images could claim two-thirds of Adobe Stock’s weekly photo best-sellers by year-end.

Whether you’re licensing images or creating them, understanding this shift early is the difference between riding the wave and paddling behind it. 🌊

Happy shooting — whatever lens (or prompt) you choose!