RELX Highlights AI Push as Elsevier STM Growth Accelerates to 6%

Key Points

• Elsevier’s STM revenue growth has accelerated to 6%, up from 2%–4% at its prior investor seminar. The division represented 28% of RELX revenue and 30% of adjusted operating profit in the first half of 2026, with about 80% of revenue subscription-based.
• RELX is expanding AI-enabled research and healthcare tools: nearly 1,000 institutional customers have subscribed to LeapSpace, and Sherpath AI reached 100,000 students in 2026. The company says these products aim to improve research and nursing workflows while supporting further growth.
• Elsevier is scaling publishing while emphasizing quality controls: it received 4.2 million article submissions annually and published more than 800,000 articles in 2025, accepting fewer than 20% of submissions. Its screening processes target integrity risks including fabricated data and AI misuse.

Relx NYSE: RELX said its Scientific, Technical & Medical, or STM, division is targeting continued improvement in long-term revenue growth through higher-value research and healthcare decision-support products, expanded publishing volumes and artificial intelligence-enabled tools.

At an investor seminar, Elsevier Chief Executive Officer Kumsal Bayazit said STM represented 28% of RELX revenue and 30% of adjusted operating profit in the first half of 2026. The segment generated annualized revenue of about $4 billion, or £3 billion, and adjusted operating profit of more than £1 billion, she said.

Nearly 80% of STM revenue is subscription-based, primarily through multiyear contracts. Primary Research, including article publishing and research analytics platforms, accounts for a little more than half of revenue, while Decision Support Tools account for about 40%.

Research spending and article volumes support growth

Bayazit said Elsevier operates in markets supported by long-term increases in global research and development spending, the number of researchers and researcher productivity. Global R&D spending has grown at an annualized real rate of about 5% over decades, she said, while global health spending has grown about 3% annually plus inflation.

Elsevier serves more than 10,000 academic and government institutions, more than 2,000 R&D-intensive corporations, and healthcare customers. No single customer represents more than approximately 1% of revenue, according to the company.

Bayazit said STM revenue growth has improved from 2% to 4% over the period discussed at its prior investor seminar, and is now at 6%. Primary Research is now growing at a mid-single-digit rate, compared with low-single-digit growth four years ago, while Decision Support Tools are growing strongly, she said.

The company aims to grow profit faster than revenue through process innovation and technology efficiencies.

Elsevier highlights publishing scale and quality controls

Gemma Hersh, Elsevier’s senior vice president of Primary Research, said the company receives 4.2 million article submissions annually, up from 1.3 million in 2015. Submissions grew more than 20% in 2025 and again by more than 20% in the first half of 2026, she said.

Elsevier published more than 800,000 articles in 2025, compared with 400,000 in 2015. Hersh said published-article growth trails submission growth by design because of the company’s quality standards. Less than 20% of submitted articles are ultimately published, she said.

Elsevier has more than 3,000 journals, works with more than 37,000 editors and 1.9 million reviewers annually, and recruited roughly 8,000 editors and 12,000 editorial board members in the past year, according to Hersh.

The company said it publishes 18% of all articles but receives around 30% of citations. Elsevier’s Field-Weighted Citation Impact was 1.46, versus an industry average of 1, and it publishes about 40% of articles in the top 10% of journals under that measure.

Hersh said artificial intelligence can improve researcher productivity but can also increase research-integrity risks, including fraudulent manuscripts and low-quality AI-generated content. Elsevier screens papers from before submission through publication for signals including AI misuse, authorship manipulation, citation abuse, paper-mill activity and data fabrication.

The company said a redesigned submission process has reduced median author submission time by 60% and has been rolled out to nearly two-thirds of its journals. Elsevier also aims to reduce the time between acceptance and publication by another 75% over the next three years.

AI products target research and nursing workflows

Bayazit said Decision Support growth is being driven by four routes: adding AI capabilities to existing products, launching new products, combining offerings into interoperable suites and integrating Elsevier data and analytics into customers’ own agentic workflows.

Max Khan, senior vice president of Research Solutions, demonstrated LeapSpace, an AI-enabled research workspace launched in January 2026. The product combines Elsevier and third-party full-text content, Scopus data, funding data and customer-provided materials to support research tasks including literature review, experiment planning and manuscript development.

LeapSpace includes “Trust Cards,” which link findings to specific source passages, and “Claim Radar,” which identifies research supporting, contradicting or producing mixed evidence around a claim. Khan said nearly 1,000 institutional customers have subscribed, while more than 1 million users have engaged with one or more LeapSpace features. The product remains small relative to Elsevier’s overall revenue, he said.

In a survey of LeapSpace users, 97% reported time savings and more than half reported saving more than 50% of their time, Khan said. Nearly 90% said the product helped them formulate or refine research questions and hypotheses.

Paul Crockett, senior vice president of Healthcare Education, outlined Elsevier’s nursing education products, including Sherpath AI. The platform uses Elsevier nursing content, adaptive quiz questions, predictive analytics and AI-supported study tools. Crockett said Sherpath AI had reached 100,000 students in 2026, representing 20% of U.S. nursing students.

He said students scoring above Elsevier’s testing benchmarks on predictive exams pass nursing licensure examinations on their first attempt 98% of the time. Elsevier is seeking to increase revenue by expanding customer adoption across its modular product suite rather than through price increases, Crockett said.

Technology strategy emphasizes evidence and flexibility

Chief Technology Officer Jill Luber said RELX spends $2 billion annually on technology and employs more than 12,000 technologists globally. Elsevier uses scientific content, extracted data points, taxonomies, ontologies and knowledge graphs to make AI outputs more traceable and reproducible, she said.

Luber said the company uses more than 120 approved AI models from providers including Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and Mistral. The multi-model approach allows Elsevier to optimize applications for quality, latency and cost, while limiting dependence on a single supplier.

Elsevier said it does not use customer data to train models. Luber added that prompt and model optimization reduced Sherpath AI token costs by nearly 50% during the year, while usage increased.

Bayazit said the company sees AI as a driver of greater scientific activity and demand for evidence-based tools. Elsevier’s strategy, she said, remains focused on combining domain expertise, scientific and medical content, analytics and modular technology platforms to improve customer outcomes and support further gradual growth.

About Relx (NYSE:RELX)

RELX PLC is a global information-based analytics and decision tools company serving professional and business customers. The company provides data, software, research, and workflow solutions that help organizations make decisions, manage risk, improve productivity, and access specialized knowledge.

Its main business areas include scientific, technical, and medical information; risk and business analytics; legal information and technology; and industry-focused events. Products and services include research platforms such as ScienceDirect and Scopus, legal research and workflow solutions offered through LexisNexis, and risk-management, fraud-prevention, and identity solutions provided through LexisNexis Risk Solutions.

RELX serves customers internationally, including universities, researchers, law firms, government agencies, insurers, financial institutions, corporations, and healthcare professionals.

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