European publishing and legal software companies have suffered sharp declines in their share prices after the US artificial intelligence startup Anthropic revealed a tool for use by companies’ legal departments. Anthropic, the company behind the chatbot Claude, said its tool could automate legal work such as contract reviewing, non-disclosure agreement triage, compliance workflows, legal briefings and templated responses. Shares in the UK publishing group Pearson fell by nearly 8% on the news, and shares in the information and analytics company Relx plunged 14%. The software company Sage lost 10% in London and the Dutch software company Wolters Kluwer lost 13% in Amsterdam. Shares in the London Stock Exchange Group fell by 13% and the credit reporting company Experian dropped by 7% in London, amid fears over the impact of AI on data companies.

Source: The Guardian February 03, 2026 23:15 UTC