RELX shows AI paying off with 7% first-half growth

TL;DR:

• FTSE 100 information group RELX reported 7% underlying revenue growth for the first half of 2026, with all four divisions contributing and full-year guidance reaffirmed.
• Revenue reached £4,871m, with adjusted operating profit up 9% underlying to £1,727m and the margin rising to 35.5%.
• Its Legal division, home to the Lexis+ platform and agentic assistant Protégé, was the standout at 10% growth.

RELX has posted a set of results that answer, at least for now, one of the sharpest questions hanging over incumbent information businesses: whether AI erodes them or lifts them. Long seen as one of the London market’s most AI-exposed names, the group reported broad-based growth and lifted its margin, and its shares had been among the hardest hit by disruption fears.

AI as a revenue driver, not a threat

The detail is in the divisions. Legal grew 10% and profit rose 13%, driven by adoption of Lexis+ and its integrated agentic legal assistant, Protégé. Risk, the largest unit, grew 8% on financial-crime and fraud tools; Scientific, Technical & Medical accelerated to 6%, helped by Scopus AI and a new LeapSpace research workspace. Chief executive Erik Engstrom said AI is letting the group “launch higher value-add products at a faster pace” while keeping cost growth below revenue growth — a dynamic he stressed has driven the business “for well over a decade”.

That framing matters. RELX is not a start-up promising AI benefits; it is an established company converting AI features into paid products and margin. Adjusted earnings per share rose 11% at constant currency, and the interim dividend was lifted 7%.

A rare concrete UK case

For UK readers, RELX is a useful counterweight to abstraction. Much British exposure to AI value accrues upstream to hardware suppliers like IQE, while ONS data shows most firms using AI only shallowly. RELX is a large UK-listed company where AI shows up in the actual results — the sort of evidence that underpins the recent jump in optimism among UK finance chiefs.

Looking forward

The reaffirmed outlook signals confidence that the momentum holds through the year. The open question is whether agentic tools like Protégé deepen customer lock-in or invite competition from cheaper AI-native rivals — the same disruption risk RELX has, for this half at least, turned to its advantage.