European publishing and legal software companies have suffered sharp declines in their share prices after the US artificial intelligence firm Anthropic announced a tool aimed at companies\u2019 in-house lawyers.<\/p>\n
The UK publishing group Pearson\u2019s shares fell by 4%, while the information and analytics firm Relx plunged nearly 11% on the London stock exchange, and the Dutch software company Wolters Kluwer dropped almost 9% in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n
Stocks in the London Stock Exchange Group and the credit reporting company Experian fell by more than 7%, amid fears over AI\u2019s impact on data companies.<\/p>\n
Anthropic, the company behind the popular chatbot Claude<\/a>, said its tool could automate legal work such as contract reviewing, non-disclosure agreement triage, compliance workflows, legal briefings and templated responses.<\/p>\n However, it said the plugin did not provide legal advice. \u201cAI-generated analysis should be reviewed by licensed attorneys before being relied upon for legal decisions,\u201d the startup said.<\/p>\n Anthropic also unveiled a number of other open-source tools to automate a range of professional activities, including sales and customer support.<\/p>\n The news will reignite fears of job losses caused by the AI boom. The UK is losing more jobs than it is creating<\/a> as companies adopt more AI tools, and is being hit harder than rival large economies, according to a study by the investment bank Morgan Stanley.<\/p>\n More than a quarter (27%) of UK workers are worried their jobs could disappear in the next five years as a result of AI<\/a>, a recent survey of thousands of employees showed. It found that British businesses reported an average 11.5% increase in productivity aided by AI. US businesses reported similar gains, but created more jobs than they cut.<\/p>\n