This week, the financial world woke up to a reality that many in the ivory towers of traditional publishing and data services thought was still a decade away. Anthropic, once seen as the security-first academic sibling of the AI world, has officially taken the gloves off. By launching a specialized agent AI tool for legal departments— specifically targeted at automating the high-volume, low-margin “greenfield work” associated with contract reviews and NDA selection — they didn't just release a product; they released the predator.
The stock market fluctuations felt less like a splash than a tsunami. Major operators such as Relx (parent company of LexisNexis), Thomson Reuters and Pearson saw double-digit share price declines within hours. Why? Because the market has finally realized that these companies don't just sell data; they were selling a process with a human bottleneck that Anthropic had just bypassed. This isn't just a new tool; this is the beginning of the Great Disintermediation.
Disintermediation mechanics: why giants bleed
To understand why a company like Thomson Reuters would lose billions in market capitalization in a single session, you need to look at what it actually does. These companies have spent decades building moats around proprietary data sets. They owned “stacks” of legal precedents, tax codes, and educational materials. They then sold access to these stacks through expensive, platform-locked software that required a small army of junior associates or paralegals to navigate.
Anthropic's new legal tool effectively democratizes this knowledge. By integrating “agentic” capabilities – meaning that the AI not only answers questions but actually executes workflows – it can absorb a company-specific “law manual” and apply it to thousands of documents in a matter of seconds.
- Cost erosion: When AI can triage an NDA for pennies in computational time compared to a co-worker making $300 an hour, the value proposition of the old data access model collapses. Learn more about the economics of AI agents.
- Platform Irrelevance: Investors fear that if Claude can perform analysis directly on a user's local files, there will be no need for a $20,000-a-year subscription to the proprietary legal research platform.
- “Good enough” threshold: While Anthropic is careful to state that “AI analysis should be reviewed by licensed attorneys,” the market knows that for 90% of routine corporate work, AI is already more consistent than a tired human.
Domino effect: who's next?
If you think this is just a “legal problem”, you are deeply mistaken. The same logic that allows AI to analyze a Master Services Agreement (MSA) applies to any industry that relies on knowledge arbitrage – the practice of charging for finding and applying complex information.
| Industry | Basic disintermediation vector | Status |
| Accounting and taxes | Automate audit trails and tax compliance in real time. | High risk |
| Financial services | Credit insurance and segregation of insurance claims without the participation of liquidators. | In progress |
| Academic publishing house | Artificial intelligence-powered research synthesis, bypassing journal paywalls. | Acceleration |
| Healthcare Administrator | Automated medical coding and prior authorization processing. | Coming |
| Human Resources | Automated checking of employment contracts and filing complaints. | Active |
As these tools evolve from “chatbots” to “agents,” the friction that once protected these professional services is disappearing. We are moving towards a world where the intermediary – the person standing between data and decision – is increasingly seen as a delay problem rather than an asset.
Global plague: from Wall Street to the City of London
The impact of this announcement is not limited to US borders. In fact, European markets were hit even harder. Companies such as Wolters Kluwer in Amsterdam and the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) experienced massive sell-offs. In particular, LSEG positions itself as a data powerhouse; the fear is that if AI tools can reach any data lake and extract value, the “premium” for the lake itself will disappear. View LSEG data strategy analysis.
Over the next 18 to 24 months, we will see a sea change in business spending. The money that previously went to “Professional Services” (consulting, law, accounting) will be redirected to “Computational and Model Training”. For the United States, this strengthens the technology-based economy, but for countries that rely heavily on service export models (such as India's BPO sector or the UK's legal and financial center), it is an existential threat.
How to Survive the AI Reaper: A Guide for Current Marketers
If you are a leader in a company that is currently in the crosshairs, you have two choices: become the platform or become the data.
- Stop selling software, start selling Results: If your revenue is tied to “seats” or “access”, you are dead. You need to move to “performance-based” models where you get paid for successfully completing a task.
- Clear your data or lose it: The only defense against a generic model like Claude's is highly specialized, “clean” data that is not available on the open web.
- Sandwich strategy: Take an approach where AI takes care of the “bread” (most of the work) and humans provide the “stuffing” (high-level judgment and accountability).
New AI Hierarchy: Anthropic and Tide
For Anthropic, the move signals a transition from research lab to corporate giant. Proving they could transform their model into a high-value niche like law, they set the roadmap for dozens more products.
However, they are not alone. Other companies are poised to capitalize on the “specialized AI” gold rush:
- Palantir: Their AIP platform is already deeply embedded in the “outcomes” business and is a natural home for these agentic workflows. Explore Palantir's AIP capabilities.
- Harvey's AI: While Anthropic provides the engine, specialized startups such as Harvey they are building a “cockpit” especially for elite law firms.
- Microsoft: By providing the infrastructure (Azure) for these models, they win regardless of which specific tool takes the crown.
Summary
The double-digit drop in share prices Thomson Reuters and Relx are a “Minsky moment” for the professional services industry. This is the moment when the market realized that AI was finally incurring the long-term debt of human-led bureaucracies. Anthropic's legal tool is the first of many agentic “reapers” that will systematically dismantle industries built on information asymmetry. If your business model is based on the principle “it takes a long time for a human to read this,” your clock has just struck zero.
As President and Chief Analyst of the Enderle Group, Rob provides regional and global companies with guidance on creating a credible dialogue with the market, reaching customer needs, creating new business opportunities, anticipating technological changes, selecting suppliers and products, and practicing zero-dollar marketing. For over 20 years, Rob has worked for and with companies including Microsoft, HP, IBM, Dell, Toshiba, Gateway, Sony, USAA, Texas Instruments, AMD, Intel, Credit Suisse First Boston, ROLM and Siemens.
