Data with destiny: Information services show structural resilience in the age of AI

Trusted data, regulation and embedded workflows should make leading information-services issuers resilient to AI disruption, with the main investment opportunity arising from issuer dispersion rather than broad sector upside.

• Proprietary datasets, recurring revenues and accountable workflows give established providers advantages over replaceable interfaces, while AI can improve products, distribution and margins.
• Experian delivered 8% organic growth in FY26 and nearly $2 billion of revenue from new and scaling products; RELX posted 7% underlying revenue growth and 9% underlying adjusted operating-profit growth in H1 2026.
• Moody’s Q2 2026 revenue increased 15%, while Moody’s Analytics annualised recurring revenue rose 9%, supporting the argument that demand for trusted and authoritative data remains strong.
• Regulation, accreditation and contractual accountability protect providers in high-stakes areas such as ratings, lending, legal research, tax, healthcare and compliance; embedded data and audit trails also make replacement costly.
• Risks include agentic AI moving up the workflow stack, cyberattacks, reputational damage and undisciplined capital allocation; RELX’s £2.25 billion 2026 buyback programme illustrates how shareholder distributions can affect credit resilience.

Takeaway: Most valuations appear broadly fair and tight spreads limit broad upside, but Experian offers the best risk-reward among the discussed issuers; investors should focus on proprietary data, regulatory protection, workflow entrenchment and balance-sheet capacity, while treating major cyber incidents as the principal tail risk.