Thomson Reuters is a tech giant in disguise with a resilience others can only envy
In this time of widespread uncertainty in business, Thomson Reuters has a resilience others can only envy.
Corporate profit warnings have proliferated during the U.S.'s threatened trade war with much of the world.
And Thomson Reuters, an information, software and news provider based in Toronto, would seem to be additionally vulnerable to rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI). Many companies still don't know what to make of AI: will it enhance their businesses or push them into irrelevance?
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
Yet Thomson Reuters is thriving under those conditions and has told shareholders to expect continued strong growth in coming years.
Thomson Reuters is rapidly building AI capabilities into many of its approximately 150 information management products for professionals in the legal, corporate, tax and accounting services.
Revenues at Thomson Reuters increased by seven per cent last year to $7.3 billion (U.S.), a good showing in a typically slow-growing industry. And Thomson Reuters expects revenues to increase by as much as 7.5 per cent this year and eight per cent in 2026.
Profit has almost doubled in the past five years, to $2.2 billion in 2024.
Thomson Reuters derives about 80 per cent of its business from long-term contracts, which helps insulate it from market turbulence.
And the return of Donald Trump to the White House could prove advantageous for Thomson Reuters.
The new administration has made a flurry of changes to the U.S.'s regulatory, tax and legal regime with many more changes to come.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
That has increased demand for Thomson Reuters' specialized data management software that retrieves, organizes and updates information essential to Thomson Reuters's clients.
The U.S. government, already a major Thomson Reuters customer, might step up its own orders for AI-enabled information tools in its ambition to streamline government services.
Thomson Reuters also stands to benefit from widespread adoption of AI in the professions it serves. For instance, in legal services, one of the firm's biggest markets, the portion of lawyers using AI-enabled information tools almost doubled last year, to 26 per cent, according to surveys it has conducted.
Thomson Reuters spent more than $200 million last year upgrading its products. It expects to invest the same amount this year incorporating the latest AI advances into its existing products and developing new ones.
Thomson Reuters has the resources for those big investments. The firm has little debt and about $10 billion in capital available for product development and acquisitions.
CEO Stephen Hasker welcomes the scores of startups pioneering in advanced AI capabilities. That includes breakthroughs like China's DeepSeek, a powerful yet relatively inexpensive set of AI tools that debuted in January.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
Such AI innovations reduce development costs for Thomson Reuters' own newest products and enable it to develop them faster.
The plethora of AI startups also presents Thomson Reuters with acquisition opportunities. Identifying acquisitions that are a good fit and smoothy integrating them has long been a Thomson Reuters strength.
Reuters News, which accounts for about 10 per cent of total revenues and dates from 1851, was acquired by Thomson Corp. in 2008. Thomson evolved from newspaper publishing into a provider of specialized information and tools for managing it.
Thomson Reuters is controlled by the Thomson family holding company Woodbridge Co. Ltd., which also owns the Globe and Mail.
Thomson Reuters had a head start in generative AI, the widely used AI application for creating new content including text and images based on existing data.
Thomson Reuters had been working with AI for several years by the time generative AI was taking off. It had just moved a great deal of its immense trove of data to the cloud. That has enabled Thomson Reuters to speed the development of new products.
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
Hasker says some clients are holding back on the expense of subscribing to the latest AI-powered information management products during the current slowdown in business investment caused by uncertainty around tariffs.
But there is an inevitability to AI adoption. Professionals recently surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect that AI will eliminate an average of 12 hours of work per week.
Thomson Reuters also hopes to benefit from 'AI exhaustion.' Many of its clients are balking at the proliferation of AI products.
Rather than depleting their treasuries and overloading employees with too many AI tools, many large clients are waiting for multi-purpose AI products.
One of the earliest of those is Thomson Reuters' CoCounsel, a multi-tasking generative AI assistant. CoCounsel, launched in recent months, can perform multi-step processes, displacing AI products with limited functionality.
Thomson Reuters, whose stock has more than doubled in the past five years to a current $184, is a tech giant in disguise. It is overshadowed by the likes of Shopify.
And never mind that Shopify stock is pricier than that of Thomson Reuters, with price-earnings ratios of 87 and 38, respectively.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Asian shares gain as investors keep an eye on China-US trade talks
Asian shares were mostly higher on Tuesday as investors kept an eye on China-U.S. trade talks that might help stave off a recession. A second day of talks was planned after U.S. and Chinese officials met in London for negotiations over various issues. The hope is that they can eventually reach a deal to reduce painfully high tariffs against each other. Most of the tariff hikes imposed since U.S. President Donald Trump escalated his trade war are paused to allow trade in everything from tiny tech gadgets to enormous machinery to continue. In Asian trading, Tokyo's Nikkei 225 gained 1% to 38,473.97, while the Kospi in South Korea jumped 0.9% to 2,881.40. Hong Kong's Hang Seng edged 0.2% higher, to 24,242.03 and the Shanghai Composite index was up 0.1% at 3,403.51. In Taiwan, the Taiex surged 2%. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.7% to 8,578.50. On Monday, the S&P 500 edged up just 0.1% and at 6,005.88 is within 2.3% of its record set in February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped by 1 point, which is well below 0.1%, to 42,761.76. The Nasdaq composite added 0.3% to 19,591.24. Hopes that President Donald Trump will lower his tariffs after reaching trade deals with countries around the world have helped the S&P 500 has rally back after it dropped roughly 20% from its record two months ago. It's back above where it was when Trump shocked financial markets in April with his wide-ranging tariff announcement on what he called 'Liberation Day.' Some of the market's biggest moves came from the announcement of big buyout deals. Qualcomm rallied 4.1% after saying it agreed to buy Alphawave Semi in a deal valued at $2.4 billion. IonQ, meanwhile, rose 2.7% after the quantum computing and networking company said it agreed to purchase Oxford Ionics for nearly $1.08 billion. On the losing side of Wall Street was Warner Bros. Discovery, which flipped from a big early gain to a loss of 3% after saying it would split into two companies. One will get Warner Bros. Television, HBO Max and other studio brands, while the other will hold onto CNN, TNT Sports and other entertainment, sports and news television brands around the world, along with some digital products. Tesla recovered some of its sharp, recent drop. The electric vehicle company tumbled last week as Elon Musk's relationship with Trump broke apart, and it rose 4.6% Monday after flipping between gains and losses earlier in the day. The frayed relationship could end up damaging Musk's other companies that get contracts from the U.S. government, such as SpaceX. Rocket Lab, a space company that could pick up business at SpaceX's expense, rose 2.5%. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.48% from 4.51% late Friday. It fell after a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that consumers' expectations for coming inflation eased a bit in May. Economists expect a report coming on Wednesday to show inflation across the country accelerated last month to 2.5% from 2.3%. Monday Mornings The latest local business news and a lookahead to the coming week. The Fed has been keeping its main interest rate steady as it waits to see how much Trump's tariffs will raise inflation and how much they will hurt the economy. A persistent increase in expectations for inflation among U.S. households could drive behavior that creates a vicious cycle that only worsens inflation. In other dealings early Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil picked up 31 cents to $65.60 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, also gained 31 cents, to $67.35. The dollar rose to 144.93 Japanese yen from 144.61 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1399 from $1.1421. ___ AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.
Globe and Mail
9 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Wall Street drifts closer to its records as trade talks start between the world's largest economies
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting closer to their records on Monday as the world's two largest economies begin talks on trade that could help avoid a recession. The S&P 500 was 0.3% higher in late trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 93 points, or 0.2%, with an hour remaining in trading, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% higher. Officials from the United States and China are meeting in London to talk about a range of different disputes that are separating them. The hope is that they can eventually reach a deal that will lower each's punishing level of tariffs against the other, which are currently on pause, so that the flow of everything from tiny tech gadgets to enormous machinery can continue. Hopes that President Donald Trump will lower his tariffs after reaching such trade deals with countries around the world have been among the main reasons the S&P 500 has rallied so furiously since dropping roughly 20% from its record two months ago. It's back within 2% of its all-time high, which was set in February, and it's higher than it was before Trump shocked financial markets in April with his wide-ranging tariff announcement on what he called 'Liberation Day.' This may be the shortest sell-off following a shock of heightened volatility on record, according to Parag Thatte, Binky Chadha and other strategists at Deutsche Bank. Typically, stocks take around two months to bottom following a spike in volatility and then another four to five months to recover their losses. This time around, stocks have basically made a round trip in less than two months. But nothing is assured, of course, and that helped keep trading relatively quiet on Wall Street Monday. Some of the market's biggest moves came from the announcement of big buyout deals. Qualcomm rallied 4.4% after saying it agreed to buy Alphawave Semi in a deal valued at $2.4 billion. IonQ, meanwhile, rose 1.6% after the quantum computing and networking company said it agreed to purchase Oxford Ionics for nearly $1.08 billion. On the losing side of Wall Street was Warner Bros. Discovery, which flipped from a big early gain to a loss of 3.4% after saying it would split into two companies. One will get Warner Bros. Television, HBO Max and other studio brands, while the other will hold onto CNN, TNT Sports and other entertainment, sports and news television brands around the world, along with some digital products. Tesla drifted following its sharp, recent swings. The electric vehicle company tumbled last week as Elon Musk's relationship with Trump broke apart, and it rose 1.8% Monday after flipping between gains and losses earlier in the day. The frayed relationship could end up damaging Musk's other companies that get contracts from the U.S. government, such as SpaceX. Rocket Lab, a space company that could pick up business at SpaceX's expense, rose 3.8%. In stock markets abroad, indexes were modestly lower in Europe after rising across much of Asia. Chinese markets climbed even though the government reported that exports slowed in May, growing 4.8% from a year earlier after jumping more than 8% in April. China also reported that consumer prices fell 0.1% in May from a year earlier, marking the fourth consecutive month of deflation. Stocks rallied 1.6% in Hong Kong and rose 0.4% in Shanghai. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.48% from 4.51% late Friday. It fell after a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that consumers' expectations for coming inflation eased a bit in May. That provides some relief for the Fed, which has been keeping its main interest rate steady as it waits to see how much Trump's tariffs will raise inflation and how much they will hurt the economy. Economists expect a report coming on Wednesday to show inflation across the country accelerated last month to 2.5% from 2.3%.
CTV News
9 hours ago
- CTV News
L.A. protests inch Elon Musk back to U.S. President Trump
Tesla CEO Elon Musk listens as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025. (via CNN Newsource) Last week, Elon Musk was calling for U.S. President Donald Trump's impeachment. This week, Musk is back to praising the administration, softening his tone after the two powerful leaders' very public breakup. The whiplash came as protests erupted in Los Angeles over actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and immigration raids. Over the weekend, Musk deleted some of his most incendiary X posts about the president, including the call for his impeachment and the allegation, without providing evidence, that Trump's name appeared in documents related to the crimes of convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. Musk appeared to wholeheartedly support the Trump administration's stance on the situation in Los Angeles, adding American Flags to a post from Vice President JD Vance about how the 'president will not tolerate rioting and violence.' Musk has long supported closed borders, stopping illegal immigration and deportations, in alignment with the Trump administration. The tech billionaire posted a screenshot of a Truth Social post from Trump that said California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass 'should apologize to the people of Los Angeles,' as clashes have broken out, cars have been set on fire and demonstrations intensify. He also wrote 'cool' to a video of Vance speaking in an interview, saying he thinks 'if Elon chills out a little bit everything will be fine.' And the Tesla CEO re-followed White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, considered one of the lead Trump administration officials on immigration policy, whom he had unfollowed on Thursday in the midst of his blow up with Trump. The move was especially notable considering Miller's wife, Katie Miller, had recently left the White House to work with Musk full time and the couple had regularly socialized with Musk outside of work. That lead to gossip among White House aides and rounds of speculation about how the fallout could impact the political fortunes of one of the most powerful couples in Trump's Washington. Katie Miller did not respond to a request for comment. Musk at one point fact checked his own AI chatbot Grok, which appeared to confirm as authentic a viral image that seemingly showed Musk writing a post that appeared to say 'Just like I took your wife' in response to Miller. 'No, it's fake ffs 🤦♂️ I never posted this,' Musk wrote in response to Grok. That doesn't mean it was all back to positive vibes from Musk this weekend. He continued to speak out – albeit in a more subtle manner – against Trump's domestic policy bill that passed the House and is now being considered in the Senate. On Sunday Musk replied 'Correct' to a user who wrote 'Musk's fight with Trump is neither a stunt nor distraction.' The same day he also reposted an article from the satirical site The Babylon Bee, titled 'Republicans Announce Plan To Keep Doing Opposite Of What Everyone Voted For Them To Do.' Musk had blasted the president's sweeping 'One, Big, Beautiful Bill' last week, arguing it would undermine much of what his Department of Government Efficiency team had done to cut federal spending and the deficit. The Trump administration had denied that the bill would add to the deficit, despite numerous nonpartisan organizations saying it would add trillions of dollars to America's debt. But Wall Street analysts are so far breathing slightly easier – as they hope whatever delicate détente holds out. 'While we do not expect Trump and Musk to be back to their Mar-a-Lago connected at the hip days, it would not be a surprise to see Trump and Musk slowly mend the fences (with the help of intermediaries behind closed doors) over the coming months,' wrote WedBush analyst Dan Ives. '[A]t the end of the day Trump needs Musk to stay close to the Republican party and Musk needs Trump for many reasons including a green light on a federal framework for autonomous [vehicles].' Tesla's stock has recovered somewhat but still remains well below where it started Thursday before the public breakup. Article by Hadas Gold.
