London, May 14, 2026, 16:02 BST
London Stock Exchange Group plc shares moved higher Thursday, with UBS’s Michael Werner sticking to his Buy call and leaving the price target at 11,700p, MarketScreener reported, citing dpa-AFX Analyser. At 15:47 in London, the shares were quoted at 9,262p, a 1.49% gain, according to ADVFN.
This comes as LSEG is keen to convince investors: artificial intelligence isn’t just something that could eat into its Workspace terminal and analytics business. For the group, AI is being positioned as a fresh way to market and sell licensed financial data.
LSEG said Wednesday it’s plugging its data and analytics into Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise using a Model Context Protocol connector—a sort of technical bridge for AI models to access outside data and tools. “Financial institutions want to move faster with AI,” according to Emily Prince, group head of enterprise AI at LSEG. For Google Cloud, Graham Drury put it bluntly: agents are “only as good as the data” they’re able to tap. LSEG
This is where things stand. Back in February, Reuters said Elliott Management had taken a position in LSEG and was agitating for stronger results. Investors, for their part, have been assessing the impact of AI on data and analytics revenue, especially since LSEG shifted focus away from traditional exchange trading fees.
LSEG’s April trading update gave management a bit of breathing space. For the first quarter, the company reported a 9.8% year-on-year increase in total income, excluding recoveries, on an organic constant-currency basis. Data & Analytics revenue climbed 5.1%, while Markets jumped 15.5%. LSEG also announced it had wrapped up £1.1 billion in share buybacks during the quarter. The outlook on 2026 revenue growth? Management expects it near the upper end of the 6.5%-7.5% guidance range.
The competition isn’t limited to exchanges. LSEG is up against FactSet, Bloomberg, and S&P Global in the financial-data sector, all of them catering to long-standing institutional customers. AI tools are now being marketed as quicker options for searching, modeling, and tracking market activity.
On Thursday, LSEG rolled out a second product. FTSE Russell, the group’s index arm, and Planetrics—part of SLR—have inked a memorandum of understanding aimed at building climate-scenario indices and analytics. These indices serve as benchmarks, capturing how companies or assets might fare under varying climate-risk scenarios.
Planetrics is set to supply its suite of physical and transition climate-risk analytics, models, and scenario tools under the proposed partnership, with index governance and commercial distribution staying with FTSE Russell. The two firms are aiming to roll out new indices before year-end, according to their statement.
Stephanie Maier, head of sustainable at FTSE Russell, described the partnership plan as targeting “transparent, innovative indices”. Thomas Bremner Bligaard, executive director at Planetrics, noted the market’s shift—from just recognizing climate risk to “actually pricing it”. SLR Consulting
Execution is where the real challenge lies. LSEG has yet to show that these AI connectors will actually boost revenue, not simply shift clients to an alternate delivery method for data they’re already paying for. Competitors haven’t let up, either. Shares are still trading beneath last year’s marks; according to ADVFN’s historical summary, LSEG is off 17.67% from where it stood a year ago, even factoring in Thursday’s uptick.
UBS sticking to its target amounts to a straightforward thumbs-up for LSEG. The real question is whether LSEG can actually convert its push into Google and OpenAI-style connectors, plus fresh index offerings, into something clients will pay for—before the next round of scrutiny over whether AI ends up being a threat or an ally.
