LONDON, Feb 3, 2026, 17:24 GMT
- European software, data and advertising shares fell as investors fretted that new AI tools could erode pricing power.
- RELX, Wolters Kluwer and Thomson Reuters dropped more than 10% at their lows after a new legal plug-in for Claude.
- Publicis slid after results; a Barclays investor survey flagged ad agencies as especially exposed to AI.
A selloff in European software, data and advertising shares deepened on Tuesday after Anthropic rolled out a legal plug-in — an add-on — for its Claude chatbot, reviving fears that fast-improving AI could eat into businesses once seen as winners from the technology. The slide also dragged several U.S. software names lower in early trading. Reuters
Investors have leaned on these companies for years because they sell information, tools or services that help clients make decisions, and that looks like a natural fit with AI. The new shift is that generative AI — systems that can draft text or code from a prompt — is starting to do more of the work directly.
Traders and analysts said the fresh worry was the pace. One new tool lands and suddenly the old playbook for what is “AI-proof” looks shaky, and fear can swamp fundamentals for a while.
Anthropic said the legal tool can automate routine tasks for in-house teams, including contract review, non-disclosure agreement triage and compliance workflows. It said AI-generated work should be reviewed by qualified lawyers before it is used for legal decisions. Theguardian
Shares of RELX fell as much as 17% and Wolters Kluwer dropped as much as 13%, while Thomson Reuters slid more than 14%. Lars Skovgaard, a senior investment strategist at Danske Bank, said “The software companies were assumed to be winners from AI.”
RELX has almost halved from its peak last February and was set for its biggest one-day drop since 1988, a steep reversal for a stock that had been treated as defensive.
SAP has been under pressure too. It lost about $40 billion in market value in one day last week after a cloud revenue forecast missed expectations; it was down 4.9% on Tuesday and more than 41% below its 2025 high.
Giuseppe Sersale of Anthilia said “parts of the sector have been under pressure for some time” as AI starts to take on programming and other knowledge work that underpins many software business models.
In early U.S. trading, Microsoft and Oracle were down about 2% and 3%, while Salesforce, ServiceNow and Adobe fell more than 5%.
In London, Experian, Sage Group, London Stock Exchange Group and Pearson fell between about 4% and 10%. A note from Morgan Stanley said the new legal capabilities added competitive heat for Thomson Reuters.
Ad groups joined the retreat. Publicis sank more than 9% after results and Omnicom slipped nearly 6%, while Publicis said it had set aside about 900 million euros ($1.06 billion) for acquisitions in 2026 focused on AI-powered technology and data assets.
A Barclays survey of buy-side investors — money managers such as asset managers — published on Monday ranked WPP alongside Omnicom and Publicis as top “AI losers”. Stocks reliant on advertising such as Pinterest and Snap also fell, while Meta and Alphabet’s Google were down only marginally.
The Financial Times said the swings wiped tens of billions in market value from media and financial data groups, underlining how abruptly investors are repricing the “AI winner” list. Ft
The moves could still prove overdone if incumbents can roll out clear, revenue-generating AI products and keep customers paying up. But Tuesday’s selling showed how quickly a new AI release can reset expectations — and how little patience the market has for uncertainty right now.
