picturemaxx Future Day 2026 recap: Introduction of picturemaxx Marketplace for AI Training Data, Trusted Content, and new developments around picturemaxx DAM.

At PICTAday 2026 in Hamburg, Max Wieberneit, Executive Board Member of picturemaxx AG, captured our vision right in the title of his talk: "Make them pay – we need new marketplaces." He presented the idea of a marketplace through which content providers can make their content available for AI applications and thereby tap into new revenue streams.

Just a few months later, this vision has become a concrete technical solution. At picturemaxx Future Day 2026 on September 10, 2026, in Munich, we presented picturemaxx Marketplace for AI Training Data and its various use cases to our customers and guests.

The AI marketplace was the key topic of Future Day. But AI is not only changing how content is used. With Trusted Content and Content Credentials, the event also addressed the provenance and authenticity of digital content. Our experts also gave insights into the further development of picturemaxx DAM, the new search technology, Drupal, and our new storage infrastructure.

picturemaxx marketplace for AI training data is here

At Future Day, Florian Kick, Head of New Product, and Executive Board Member, Max Wieberneit, presented picturemaxx Marketplace for AI Training Data and showed what new opportunities it opens up for content and media providers:

• AI Training Data: License and monetize media assets for AI model training
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): Provide content as a knowledge source for AI applications
• Pay per Crawl: Track the use of web content by AI providers and ensure fair compensation

With the marketplace, we are bringing our extensive experience in media marketing to new AI applications. For many years, picturemaxx has connected providers and buyers, and we are familiar with the processes, technologies, and licensing models of the industry. This know-how forms the foundation for the marketplace's technical infrastructure, bringing together professional content offerings with new usage opportunities in the AI market.

At the core is the controlled use of professional content: rights holders retain control over how their content may be used. Clear contractual rules, transparent usage, and traceable billing also create the conditions for fair financial participation.

The keynote "AI Licensing: The Opportunity" at Future Day also highlighted the economic potential this creates for content providers. The focus was on the question of what new opportunities arise from licensing professional content for AI applications.

Trusted Content: making provenance traceable

As the volume of generated and altered images grows, it is becoming harder to determine where an image comes from and how it was created. For image agencies and other professional media providers that receive and process large volumes of visual content every day this is a major challenge. The issue is also gaining regulatory importance: since August 2026, the EU AI Act has required transparency for certain AI-generated and manipulated content.

This is where Content Credentials and the C2PA standard come in. They make it possible to embed information about the origin and editing history of digital content in a standardized and verifiable way. This creates greater transparency into how an image was created.

picturemaxx DAM supports Content Credentials across the entire media lifecycle: from ingesting and managing an asset, through editing and metadata, to further use and publication. This allows information about provenance and modifications to be retained and passed on throughout the workflow.

Marcus Zelend, Head of Research & Platform Engineering at picturemaxx, showed what this support looks like in practice in his Future Day talk "Trusted Content: Authenticity and Trustworthy Content."

Technical basis for professional media collections

Even established media workflows continue to evolve. That is why Future Day focused not only on the new opportunities around AI, but also on the solutions our customers use every day.

This includes the new search technology in picturemaxx DAM. Especially with large archives, the quality of search determines how quickly users can find the images they need. Marcus Zelend offered insights into the current stage of development.

With picturemaxx Drupal Showcase, the focus shifted from finding to presenting. Maria Nordhoff, Product Manager Drupal, introduced new features of the Drupal content management system and showed how high-quality media collections can be presented to external audiences in a modern way.

The infrastructure behind the scenes has also been renewed. Christian Kerbetz, Director IT, presented the new picturemaxx storage infrastructure, which is based on all-flash (NVMe) technology. It provides the foundation for reliably processing large media collections, enabling fast access, and supporting compute-intensive applications. In addition, three coordinated layers of protection provide greater security against attacks and unwanted bots.

Key takeaways from Future Day

Future Day highlighted how much the requirements for professional media platforms are changing. Existing technologies must continue to evolve, while AI is driving new requirements around provenance, traceability, and use of digital content.

For picturemaxx, this means bringing both together: enhancing the technological foundation for today's media business while creating new paths for the media business of tomorrow. The AI marketplace is an important step in this direction.

Stay in touch

Interested in learning more about picturemaxx Marketplace for AI Training Data, Trusted Content, or the other developments presented? We look forward to hearing from you. Feel free to send us a message.

Further information

Contact: marketing@picturemaxx.com