LONDON, April 6, 2026, 15:21 BST.
RELX’s U.S.-listed ADRs, the group’s New York-traded shares, edged up about 0.3% to $33.71 on Monday as investors looked ahead to its April 23 trading update and annual meeting, the next scheduled statement on 2026 trading after February’s full-year results. 1
That matters because the stock has not fully shrugged off February’s AI scare. Reuters reported on Feb. 6 that RELX was still sliding as AI worries prevailed, while the Wall Street Journal said investors were questioning whether the group could fend off AI startups in legal software. 2
In April investor material, RELX said it still saw positive momentum across the group and expected another year of strong revenue and adjusted operating profit growth, as well as strong earnings-per-share growth at constant currency, which strips out exchange-rate moves. The presentation put 2025 revenue at 9.6 billion pounds and adjusted operating profit at 3.3 billion pounds. 3
Buybacks are supporting the case, too. RELX said on March 23 that it launched a 350 million pound repurchase program running through April 22, after completing a 450 million pound tranche, with both programs part of a 2.25 billion pound 2026 plan. 4
A March 30 filing showed the group bought 3.43 million shares between March 23 and March 27 and had repurchased 31.06 million since Jan. 2. RELX said the shares would be held in treasury. 5
That pitch is being tested most visibly in legal software, where RELX’s LexisNexis unit is rolling out Lexis+ with Protégé. Sean Fitzpatrick, chief executive for global legal at LexisNexis Legal & Professional, said lawyers were seeking “integrated legal AI work environments” as the platform pushed deeper into drafting, review, analysis and citation checking. 6
Chief Financial Officer Nick Luff told Reuters in February that RELX’s edge lay in its constantly updated data and proprietary algorithms, which he said deliver “the right judgments, the right inferences, and the right interpretations” for professionals making high-value decisions. 7
Still, the competitive backdrop has not eased. Reuters reported in February that Anthropic’s latest tools sharpened fears that AI was moving into the “application layer” — the software layer where users actually do the work — hitting RELX, Wolters Kluwer and Thomson Reuters, and Schroders analyst Jonathan McMullan called it a “deepening structural debate” for incumbents. 8
The risk for RELX is straightforward: investors may want harder proof that new AI products are lifting growth faster than competition erodes pricing. James St. Aubin of Ocean Park Asset Management said the sector’s once-wide defences feel “more narrow today” as AI competition intensifies. 9
