Anthropic’s launch of AI legal tool hits shares in European data services firms | AI (artificial intelligence)
European publishing and legal software companies suffered sharp declines in share prices after US artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced a tool for companies’ in-house lawyers.
Shares of UK publishing group Pearson lost 4 percent of their value, while information and analytics firm Relx lost nearly 11 percent on the London stock exchange and Dutch software company Wolters Kluwer lost almost 9 percent in Amsterdam.
Shares in London Stock Exchange Group and credit reporting company Experian fell more than 7% amid fears about the impact of artificial intelligence on data companies.
Anthropic, the company behind the popular chatbot Claude, said the tool can automate legal work such as contract review, NDA prioritization, compliance workflows, legal briefings and templated responses.
However, it was stated that the plugin does not provide legal advice. “AI-generated analysis must be reviewed by licensed attorneys before being used for legal decisions,” the initiative said.
Anthropic has also introduced a number of other open source tools to automate a range of professional activities, including sales and customer support.
The news will reignite fears of job losses caused by the AI boom. The UK is losing more jobs than it creates and being hit harder than rival major economies as companies adopt more AI tools, according to a study by investment bank Morgan Stanley.
A recent survey of thousands of employees showed that more than a quarter (27%) of UK employees are worried their jobs could disappear in the next five years as a result of AI. It found that British businesses reported an average 11.5% increase in productivity with the help of AI. Businesses in the U.S. reported similar gains but created more jobs than they cut.
London mayor Sadiq Khan said in his annual speech at Mansion House last month that artificial intelligence could destroy many jobs in the capital. He said London was at the “sharp point of change” due to its reliance on white-collar workers in the financial and creative industries and professional services such as legal, accounting, consultancy and marketing.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by CEO Dario Amodei and other former staff at OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT.
