FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
LONDON (Reuters) -British business information group RELX said on Thursday demand for its generative AI tools from lawyers and scientists boosted half-year profit by 9%, and it was confident on further growth as new products launch and its conference business thrives.
The growth over the last 10 years of RELX, which has helped make it one of the 10 biggest companies on the London Stock Exchange, has been driven by offering AI-based tools to professional customers in the banking, insurance, law and medicine sectors.
Demand for its new generative AI tools has helped sustain growth more recently, and for the first six months of the year, the group posted adjusted operating profit of 1.65 billion pounds ($2.23 billion), on revenues which were up 7% to 4.74 billion pounds.
"The opportunity in front of us remains very exciting, the development of new content, new data sets, new data sources, the computing power that's available to crunch the data or analyse the data, the algorithmic techniques," CFO Nick Luff said in an interview with Reuters after the results.
Those developments mean the company can keep innovating to offer customers new products which make their working more efficient.
Luff highlighted its new Lexus+AI Protégé offering, which acts as a legal assistant, combining both public content and a law firm's internal content, allowing lawyers to draft and summarise in their own firm's particular style.
For academics and researchers, Science Direct AI is another product which is being well-received Luff said. It enables users to become more efficient in absorbing the latest developments in their fields.
Shares in RELX, which competes with Thomson Reuters, traded down 0.5% at 3,874 pence in morning deals. The stock has risen 10% over the last 12 months and 250% over the last 10 years.
($1 = 0.7383 pounds)
(Reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by Susan Fenton)
