Pearson boss shrugs off investor AI fears after share jitters
The boss of Pearson has shrugged off shareholder concerns that the company’s services could be usurped by the rising use of AI chatbots.
Earlier in the year the education giant was one of a number of London-listed data and software-led stocks, including the likes of Sage and Relx, that suffered steep selloffs amid investor anxieties over the prospect of general-purpose AI tools supplanting specialist programmes.
But Pearson chief executive Omar Abbosh was adamant that the firm’s services would continue to see growing demand in the year ahead.
“I have empathy with these investors who are trying to see the wood for the trees given the sheer rate of AI innovation,” Abbosh said in an interview with City PM.
“80 per cent of Pearson’s profits come from assessments and virtual schools. Those are very operationally complex physical and digital services, they’re human-led services and they require a very high bar of operational excellence.
“I did 35 years of tech before I came to Pearson – you cannot do that with an AI plugin.
“Every time an AI lab puts out some amazing new AI feature which I love, we use those features and we ground those models in our proprietary datasets.
“We can demonstrate an efficacy from our products that actually result in learner outcomes that are way better than traditional approaches, let alone if you just use AI to answer your questions, in which case you will actually do worse in your studies, and we can demonstrate that.”
Activist investors have built up major stakes in Pearson in recent months, piling further pressure on the company to shore up its long term technology strategy or face shareholder action.
“I’m delighted to see smart money increase its position in our register because clearly they’re seeing the upside risk in Pearson is way higher than any downside risk,” Abbosh told City PM.
Further growth ahead, says Pearson
The FTSE 100 education business said it expected low to mid-single digit sales growth over the course of 2026, with profit of between £640m and £650m driven by strong growth in its virtual learning division.
The company posted a dip in profits in 2025 after taking a £87m impairment hit from knocking together different course platforms.
Pearson shares were broadly unchanged on Friday morning. The stock is down by six per cent since the start of the year.
Abbosh said the growth guidance was “a sign of our confidence in our business model and confidence for the demand that we’re seeing in the market.”