{"id":81098,"date":"2025-10-17T17:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/81098\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T17:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T17:17:08","slug":"ai-is-no-threat-says-pearson-boss-as-training-sales-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/81098\/","title":{"rendered":"AI is no threat, says Pearson boss, as training sales rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

The boss of Pearson has insisted that the rise of artificial intelligence in the workplace is an opportunity for selling more of its training products, rather than a threat.<\/p>\n

Omar Abbosh, chief executive of the FTSE 100 education group, said AI could be used to \u201caugment people\u201d in the workplace. \u201cIt can reduce the load on specific tasks, rather than an entire job,\u201d he said, adding that there may come to be some exceptions.<\/p>\n

Pearson\u2019s clients include some of the world\u2019s largest technology companies, which were also struggling with the pace at which AI is developing, Abbosh said.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Omar Abbosh<\/p>\n

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL<\/p>\n

His comments came as Pearson reported an improvement in underlying revenue growth of 4 per cent during the third quarter and signalled a further acceleration ahead in the final three months of the year. Revenue was 2 per cent higher over the first nine months of the year.<\/p>\n

Its virtual learning business posted a 17 per cent rise in revenue as enrolments were up 13 per cent.<\/p>\n

The top line benefited from the signing of more enterprise training deals and embedding more AI<\/a> into its software products, the company said.<\/p>\n

The higher education business continued to suffer, however, in its most mature markets, which pushed revenue 1 per cent lower in the September quarter.<\/p>\n

Better sales growth and cost savings are expected to come from simplifying its operating structure, which would cut out some duplication. Pearson, which used to own the Financial Times and a significant stake in Penguin Random House, had previously been run as a \u201ccompany with a lot of disparate portfolio companies\u201d, Abbosh said.<\/p>\n

Management is targeting \u201csustained\u201d operating profit margin improvement that will equate to about 40 basis points a year and a conversion of 90 to 100 per cent of cash generated by its operations to free cash. It is targeting an average \u201cmid-single digit\u201d revenue growth a year over the medium-term.<\/p>\n

The shares closed up 25\u00bdp, or 2.3 per cent, at \u00a311.19\u00bd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The boss of Pearson has insisted that the rise of artificial intelligence in the workplace is an opportunity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-81098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}