By Kenneth Li
Aug 5 (Reuters) - Thomson Reuters lifted its full-year organic revenue forecast on Wednesday, with CEO Steve Hasker saying that the Toronto-based content and technology company's focus was on investing and developing AI across its portfolio.
The company said last week that early results showed Thomson, a proprietary large language model built for professional work and trained on content from Westlaw, Practical Law, Checkpoint and Reuters, performed well against frontier models from Anthropic,
OpenAI and Google.
Thomson Reuters, which owns Reuters News, raised its full-year organic revenue forecast to around 8%, from a previous range of 7.5% to 8%, as it reported second-quarter revenue rose 9% to $1.95 billion, just above estimates of about $1.9 billion.
Hasker said in an interview after publishing the quarterly results that Thomson Reuters will focus on investing in Thomson and developing applications for the company's legal, tax and accounting and audit professions as it explores broader commercialization of the model.
"We could see the opportunity to create sovereign AI solutions for our biggest and most sophisticated customers, while at the same time powering products like Westlaw and Co-Counsel with that, which would give us greater speed, greater scalability, and a cost advantage," Hasker told Reuters.
Hasker said he also saw applications in the news division, but did not provide any details.
AI DISRUPTION CONCERNS
Thomson Reuters said earnings per share excluding items rose to 99 cents in the second quarter. This compared with Wall Street EPS forecasts of 96 cents.
"I think the quarter should help calm some of the AI-disruption concerns, at least in the near term," said Adam Sarhan, CEO of investment advisory firm 50 Park in New York, adding that AI investments are beginning to show in results.
Shares in Thomson Reuters have been among those hit this year by fears over the challenges that AI newcomers, including Anthropic, pose to established companies, triggering a selloff in software, data and professional services stocks.
Thomson Reuters shares have underperformed the S&P/TSX Composite Index, which as of Tuesday was up 12.35% year to date. Thomson Reuters shares were down 15.28% over the same period.
"A 9% revenue increase and an upward revision to full-year guidance suggest that customers are still paying for Thomson Reuters core products, even as AI changes how legal and tax information is consumed," Sarhan added.
Chief Financial Officer Gary E. Bischoping, Jr. said in an interview that about 32% of Thomson Reuters underlying contract value, which breaks down a contract's total value, relied on generative AI in the second quarter, up from 30% in the first.
Last month, Thomson Reuters announced the sale of 51% of its Global Print business to create a joint venture with KKR to focus on its digital businesses and "fiduciary-grade AI", which is AI built to produce results that can be verified and audited.
(Reporting by Kenneth Li in New York; additional reporting by Aditya Soni in Bangalore; Editing by Alexander Smith)
