All right. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being here. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Manav Patnaik. I'm Barclays' business and information services analyst, and we're pleased to have back with us always at S&P Global. We have back with us, if you know him, but we're also pleased this year to have Adam Kansler with us, who runs the intelligence. So thank you for being here.
Thank you.
Adam, I know Ewout brought you here to do most of the talking, so I'll get to you eventually, but I'm gonna first, you know, ask the question to Ewout just to clear the question out of the way. So, you know, last quarter, it was an, I would say, emotional reaction, perhaps, to your stock. And I think a lot of it was just around the margins that missed estimates. And I know you've already explained this early last week, but maybe just for the benefit of those who didn't catch that, you know, what happened there, and are the expectations for the second half, you know, still intact?
Sure. So I think from my perspective, two important points to make. The first is with respect to the outlook of the company for the remainder of the year. What we did after our second quarter earnings call was deliberately to put guidance out based on prudent assumptions. Because when we are looking at the macro environment, there's still a lot of uncertainty. The higher interest rate environment still has to work through the real economy. We don't know if there's going to be more fallout in certain areas.
We wanted to make sure that what we put out to the market, that it is something that we really confident about being able to deliver, and not that we, later in the year, have to backtrack at any moment on the outlook for the company and for each of, of the divisions. So actually sitting here today, I've heard people saying, "Oh, my God, what happened with, issuance in July and August, and that is light," and other of those questions. And that is just from my perspective, reinforcing that we made the right decision with respect to the outlook we provided, because I'm still very comfortable sitting here today, with respect to, to the, to the guidance for 2023. I think we're on the way to achieve those numbers. So that is point number one.
Point number two is with respect to margins. Unfortunately, there's a lot of noise in our margins this year, and the noise is actually not so much driven by the performance in 2023, but more the comparable base in 2022. So let me describe to you the margins overall for the company for the four quarters in 2022. That was 45, 47, 46, 41. I repeat, 45, 47, 46, 41. This year, we're around, around 46 in the first quarter, second quarter. Ballpark, we expect there to be the next two quarters. So actually, really stable pattern, what you see in margins for this year. Continuing like that, we will deliver on the expected margin expansion that we gave in our guidance of 60-160 basis points margin expansion. But you see, it is over a very volatile margin pattern for 2022.
Why were margins so volatile last year? Actually, I think we were braced a lot last year around protecting the margins in a difficult environment when the Markit really got tough from March onwards. And that had to do with a lot of cost reduction exercises with respect to hiring, with respect to discretionary spend, with respect to variable spend. And particularly in that last category, there was incentive compensation, where we were reducing the accruals in the second and third quarter based on the formulaic approach, what is behind all of those incentive schedules. But then the fourth quarter, in the end, was a bit better than we originally assumed. The Ratings business came back a little bit, and then we brought back those accruals up. So again, that created a little bit of the noise from a margins perspective.
So this year, about 46% ballpark for the next two quarters, and specifically by division, we expect the Ratings and Market Intelligence to be a little bit stronger with margins in the fourth quarter than the third quarter, and the other three divisions the other way around. The third quarter a little bit stronger in the third quarter than the fourth quarter.
Got it. Thank you for that. The 60-160 points range, I'm guessing a big factor in that range is just volume activity, so just basically getting insurance. I think, you know, rated issuance, you said July was up 1%, August was probably slow. Any just... I know you said you were glad, you were prudent, so I guess that's implying things are a little bit worse than maybe anybody was hoping for. But just some thoughts on that variability that you factored second half of the year.
No, I don't want to signal that things are worse. Actually, the 1% billed issuance in July is still exactly in line with what we said, that we think billed issuance this year will go up somewhere between 4%-8%. Ratings revenue will be up in the range of 5%-7%. The margin expansion promises that we have provided for each of the divisions. So I would say we're exactly on track to deliver what we said at the end of July.
Got it. And then, you know, you were just out in the market yourself. So maybe just some observations on perhaps, you know, why, what you saw. You know, we just had Jamie Dimon, he was pretty negative, broadly, you know, cautious on spreads and everything, but just curious, your timing and how, you know, the, the CFOs think about this.
Yeah. Of course, last week was a really busy week from an issuance perspective, compared to July and August. But it's also proving the point, you should not really look at this on a month-by-month, week-by-week basis. This will all wait. So the reason we went to the market is we had some short-term borrowings, mostly CP for cash management purposes... and because short-term money is so expensive, it was better for us to term it out. It was leverage neutral. We could still do that at attractive terms. Actually, we're able to issue at no issuer concession, which I thought was really a great achievement. And ultimately, this will help to reduce our interest expense for this year and the year. That was the reason why we did that, and we thought it was a good step from an overall corporate financing perspective.
Got it. Okay, thank you for that. So I pulled forward those questions so you could take a break. And now, Adam, let's get to you. So firstly, high level, you know, some of the people might not have seen you speak before, but just a quick background on, you know, you were obviously at Markit for many, many years. So just maybe a quick brief background on how you got involved in this business.
Yeah. Thanks. Exciting to be here. Thank you for having me. I started my career as a lawyer many, many years ago. Joined Markit when it was a small, much smaller company, eventually merged with IHS, became IHS Markit. I took over some of the financial services businesses around index and some of our data businesses. My set of responsibilities grew over time. Company merged with IHS, became IHS Markit, then had a pretty rapid period of growth and expansion, during which I led all the financial services businesses. And in 2020, at the end of the year, it merged with S&P Global. We took the financial services businesses of IHS Markit, merged them with the S&P Global Market Intelligence business, creating the new Market Intelligence division of S&P Global.
Today, the largest division of S&P Global, with vast set of capabilities. Tell you, while at IHS Markit, we always pined for the distribution capabilities, like in S&P Global had. And I think S&P Global was always looking over the shoulder saying, "Wow, all those content and workflow tools, that would be interesting." So yeah, it has become a bit of a fantastic combination.
Got it. So maybe just elaborate on the high-level strategy there. I know even at Markit, when we used to talk, Cap IQ, you had always observed on the outside. Now that you have the two pieces together and you've been, you know, running it for a while, like on, on a high level, like, what is - what are the top two things you're most excited about? You mentioned distribution in some of the videos. Maybe just a little e laborate a little bit more on why that merger made sense, specifically Market Intelligence.
A couple things I'd probably touch on. First, the scale of the enterprise today. You know, the variety of capabilities that we have, from workflows to data sets, ability to serve a customer across many different areas of their needs, particularly at the current moment, where we see our customer base, particularly large customers, looking to consolidate their vendor relationships. Looking to be able to get more and more services from a single place, a place where those things interact with each other. That scale actually becomes a commercial advantage. Second, and I think Ewout actually said this in one of our meetings earlier today, the combination of software, technology, tools, data, and services. You know, think of those three. It's a very powerful combination.
The ability to lift a service out from a customer, provide a managed service in connection with a leading software tool, and providing all the underlying data. Think about the loans business, fixed income businesses, corporate actions, private company portfolio monitoring, all areas, supply chain management. All areas that you think of as really important areas for secular growth, we're able to address a customer's needs on multiple fronts with the combination of assets. I mean, prior to that, we couldn't do it. So those are two things that jump out at me. You don't want to miss the power of the brand and the power of the franchise across S&P Global. We're able to bring together a very wide array of capabilities and datasets, even outside of Market Intelligence.
I think about our oil and gas data and how we can pull that into a desktop solution to power up investment banking teams and, you know, Power & Gas. Each of... There's lots of these small pieces. We're bringing the capabilities together. It's a bit of a game changer for each of the set of capabilities that would have stood alone.
Got it. Maybe to ask it a different way, let's focus on the synergies. And maybe, Ewout, I'll ask you first. On the cost synergy side, you know, briefly, total company, but more specifically, Market Intelligence is obviously the largest, I think, you said, component of both the cost and revenue synergies. So where are we on the cost side?
On the cost side, we're almost done. We reported at the end of the second quarter, run rate, $574 million of cost synergies realized. We have a target, as you know, of $600 million, and we like this to be done quickly because cost synergies, operational integration, are completely linked to each other. So you don't want to have an overhang to an organization too long of we're integrating, we're still pushing the companies together. At some point, you want to just say, "We're one organization. We have one system environment. We're running the same processes. There's clarity about how the organization is looking." And then from that point, you're really moving forward to the future and grabbing all the, all the opportunities.
So we're actually happy that we're close to that point with respect to the cost synergies, that we can say, "Okay, we're done, and we're calling it a day." That doesn't mean that we will... With efficiencies and productivity, we have then, of course, to think about what's the next way of opportunity, because our businesses, with the scale, with the leverage we have, there's always opportunity then to do more. But then at least the chapter of cost synergies we can, we can close off.
Got it. Those comments would be broadly applicable to just MI as well, correct?
Absolutely, yeah. MI is, of course, the largest component into both cost and revenue synergies. As the largest division, the largest groups that are coming together, also the largest revenue part. So in terms of the central functions, synergies that are realized. Also, the allocation is the largest part goes to MI, and the largest part goes to Ratings. So yes, MI is definitely the part where most of those results are showing up.
Adam, you get the harder part of the question, which is revenue synergies. Maybe just a quick update where you are today. You know, most investors tend to be skeptical on revenue synergies. So just in terms of your target, if you could also just help me break out how you piece, you know, getting some of the big categories or many small categories, just some color there would be helpful.
I'll give a 10-second comment just on cost as well, to help with the context. We thought of cost on a 3-year timeframe and revenue on a 5-year timeframe. But 3 years really is a very long time on cost, especially within a particular business line. Within Market Intelligence, I mentioned before, two large businesses coming together, it's about half and half. So you really needed to have a full integration of businesses. Now, to Ewout's point, just a moment ago, that operational integration was so important to getting people on the right track from a strategic and development perspective. So that accelerates your path on cost, and it was important to have a line of sight there very quickly. On the revenue side, that's driven by that new organizational structure and focusing on core areas for growth.
The early period of revenue synergies, if you think about that, over that five-year period I described, year one being 2022, that's almost entirely a cross-sell revenue synergy. That means introducing customers to new products on each side of the table, and that actually went better than expected. I did expect it to go well, but the S&P brand, the depth of relationships that each of the companies had with their customers, gave a lot of opportunity to introduce new products to those customers. And, quite successful, tracking ahead of plan. Small numbers, early days, but tracking ahead of plan. As you go through that five-year period, best way to think of it is in year two, so that's this year, that moves to 90-10. 90% are cross-sell, 10% is new products, new enhanced products.
We're incorporating a data set that we have into Xpressfeed solution. We're putting public company comparable data into our private company portfolio management tool. It's the integration of businesses that creates something new for a customer. As you get towards year 3, that moves to 30, you know, 30-70s. You get towards year 4, 45-55. Eventually, by year 5, it's, you know, over a majority, like 60% of this is coming from new and enhanced products as you get out. That's what we watch carefully, the launch of those new and enhanced products. We looked at our launch schedule. Merger only closed, March of last year. We've already launched 4 new and enhanced products, and we have about 4-6 a quarter now starting to come out of the back half this year, and that'll continue out through 2024. So-
And in terms of these new products you just talked about, is it fair to say? Is there one particular area, or when we think about it over a multi-year period, you know, what is the true, you know, markets that your capabilities allow you to grow more into?
Yeah. Diversified in the sense that there are multiple product enhancements or new products that are available for us, concentrated in concentrated amounts of core areas of growth. Private markets, right? Launching managed data services, enhancing private company information for all different types of portfolio managers. But a real concentration around private markets, a real concentration around the supply chain. One product called Supply Chain Console, where you can manage all the aspects of your supply chain, which each company could do a bit and a piece, but now you can see credit, you can see shipping, you can see economics, political risk, all in one dashboard. Credit and risk management.
Large project on helping corporates manage their credit risk, a place where some of our competitors have had products for years, but the combined set of assets now allows us to have a much more robust offer in credit risk management. Sustainability. Everyone's aware of, you know, our presence there, but our combined capabilities now around climate risk, physical risk, are giving us an outsized opportunity over the next three to five years. So focused in four or five core areas, but within each of them, multiple areas for growth.
Got it. I wanted to maybe ask the next few questions by your sub-line segment. So maybe just starting with desktop, which I think is a quarter of MI. You know, obviously, there's a lot of headlines of bank layoffs coming. I think we all know that. There's the CS UBS merger going on. You guys lowered your guidance in MI last quarter through the year. Just a general update on how—what your customer conversations look like, what is the macro, you know, feel in the near term there?
Yeah. Overall, very positive. We've spent a lot of energy over the last year and a half. This really started a little bit before the merger, even looking at the desktop, understanding where are our strengths, what are our capabilities? We have some incredible data sets, some really important deep sector data in several industries. We had a desktop that has lots of capabilities. We had—remember, we had two desktops. We had Capital IQ, one was called SNL. We've bumped them together, Capital IQ Pro. Today, making sure we have a full set of capabilities available to our customers. We've upgraded it quite significantly. This past June, we had the largest release we've ever had on desktop. We have a completely new RatingsDirect ratings on Capital IQ Pro product that's available. Customers have been very excited with those capabilities.
But I think more importantly, seeing our forward roadmap, customers now see in our desktop, now there's fixed income data, there's loans data, there's economic and country risk data. There's an expansion of its ability to use our desktop with plugins to Excel, PowerPoint, Word, automatic updating of files. Things where if it's a user from seven years ago on Cap IQ you wouldn't. It doesn't bear any resemblance to what the capabilities are today. So our focus there is really on that quality. As you know, we moved to an enterprise pricing model around desktops several years ago, so user count is no longer a proxy for actual dollars, but it is a proxy for adoption and, interest and confidence in the platform. And that's what we're seeing, steady growth. Even through this period of contraction, we've had user growth every quarter.
We're continuing to see that, and I think the value proposition is increasingly being recognized by our customers, not just in terms of how good the product has become today, but the roadmap we've now laid out for what it will be over the next three to five years.
Got it. And, you know, you mentioned vendor consolidation earlier, which I think is obviously a big theme. But is it fair to assume that maybe in the near term, you feel a little bit of pressure from, you know, budgets and stuff from your financial customers, but longer term, that vendor consolidation is probably the opportunity?
I think some of our customers are under budget pressure, and that is driving their consolidation decisions. I don't know that that's hitting us negatively as much as it may hit others. I don't know that in that consolidation, we're seen as the one that's being consolidated away from. I think it's given us increased opportunity to do some of the things that either are more expensive or a point solution, or something that can be done on our platform. It's an opportunity to actually move to our platform. So, I'm always, you know, I'm always hesitant when I see customers under budgetary pressure, but over, you know, 20 years of a career, I've always seen that as that's your opportunity to actually get closer and put the right relationship in place to expand the relationship.
Ewout, maybe you could just remind us to clarify, you know, the guidance reduction and, you know, what the moving pieces were there. Perhaps also just, you know, what your exposure to perhaps the sell side and the buy side might look like.
Yeah. At the end of the first quarter, what we said was, we see some of those longer sales cycles, and Adam explained the reasons why. So we thought that we would end up at the lower end of the range that we had from a top line growth perspective. So the range of 6.5%-8.5% at the time, we said we expect to be at the low end. So incrementally, what we're now looking at is a bit of uncertainty around particularly the sales of ESG scores. We think, by the way, long term, this reconsideration in the market around scores and a lot of asset managers moving to in-house proprietary methodologies is actually an opportunity for us to sell the raw data, the ESG raw data.
But short term, there was a bit of uncertainty that pause would mean for the business. So we thought it's better to be careful, give ourselves a little bit of wiggle room. So we moved the range to 6%-8%, but we were not pointing to the low end of the range anymore. So, there wasn't anything dramatic that was in that signal behind it. I think the interpretation was maybe a little bit, too extreme from my perspective, for what we're intending to, to do. The wheels are not coming off. On the contrary, we think the business is doing well. As Adam was saying, the outlook is great. We see the deals getting done and closed. We see the price of tech being healthy. We see the user growth being very strong. So there's many, many, many positive signals that we're seeing.
We just thought it was better to be a little bit more careful from a range perspective. But again, I think the only incremental little thing was there, on top of what we said at the end of the first quarter, was, the uncertainty around, sustainability and ESG scores.
Got it. And, you know, you already gave us the cadence on the margins for MI. I guess how much of that is reliant on, I think there's 15% of MI, perhaps, if I got that right, that's tied to, you know, volumes, capital markets volumes. So just maybe some help on the tie to those assumptions.
The expectations in that are, again, very careful. So we haven't put any heroic assumptions in with respect to a return of growth from the capital markets businesses in order to achieve those numbers. So deliberately, we are careful, and the comps are becoming easier. FX becomes less of a headwind. And then we actually believe that the second half of this year, the numbers for the whole company and MI will be stronger than the first half of the year. I think some people have said that that sounds strange because in this current environment, but again, that has more to do with the comp than with the outlook that we are actually having for the back half of this year. So I would say we're still very confident we can hit that.
Got it. Adam, maybe the next line item that you guys call it data and advisory. I think that's the biggest part of the MI business. Maybe just for some perspective, what exactly is in that line item? And I think, you know, other than desktop, all the others seem to be going pretty well. So maybe just what's driving some of that growth in data and advisory.
Yeah. So data and advisory is what's on the tin. These are specialized datasets. It could be anything from fixed income pricing to special maritime datasets, to our TMT consulting business, wide range of reference data, all different types of data and analytics capabilities. The demand for those services continues to grow. Even in stressful times, customers want better insights. What we do see is customers asking for that data to be delivered into their systems in a highly flexible way. You'll see, this year we won Provider of the Year with both Snowflake and Databricks. We're delivering through AWS. You all read about a large partnership we signed there.
That kind of flexibility, and a lot of things we're building internally at S&P Global in order to make our data even more flexible and accessible to customers, coding it in a way so that you can discover it more rapidly. We have a product called Marketplace. If you haven't gone, you all should. There's over 230 tiles there today. About 25% of them came from the IHS Markit merger. So bringing that broad data set and making it widely available to our customers for exploration, very sticky products. You know, once a customer is using that data set, they tend to continue to use it because it's been built into their workflows, and it uses their benchmark, so just an area that continues to grow for us.
And is it right to think that that's the data you sell outside of Capital IQ Pro? I guess what I'm trying to tie in is, you know, you can feed a lot of data through Capital IQ Pro. So if someone's buying it through that, that they could report it in this line? Is it separate line, or how does that work?
Yeah, this would be data that's not sold through a desktop subscription. So you might be looking up the prices of securities on the desktop or using that as a research tool, but you're not feeding your risk management system at your firm through the desktop. You feed that through a feed, a flat file, and some other way of distributing it. That's part of our data business.
Got it. And then if you go, you know, to the next one, enterprise solutions, maybe again, just a similar, just a level set. What's in that, line item and some of the trends you're seeing there?
Yeah. This is, in some ways, maybe the hardest for people to understand, because there's a combination of industry platforms and software and workflow solutions within the enterprise solution segment. Sometimes in the quarter, we explain the components a little bit to give you some context. But if you think about our software tools and portfolio management tools, those continue to grow very strongly, many of them growing at double digits. The other components of enterprise solutions are some of our platforms. They're market-driven platforms. When you see variation based on volume or activity in the market, you're seeing it in that enterprise solutions business line. That's why you saw through 2022, pretty challenged levels there, and that's as we normalize and have periods of comparison that are now, you know, been brought down from 2022.
Now you're starting to see the growth there normalize and reflect our tax compliance solutions, our iLEVEL portfolio management tools, WSO on the loan side, all of those software solutions that are growing really well in the current environment.
Got it. Then the last piece, the credit and risk solutions, is that basically the Ratings we sell?
Correct. And the principal products there are RatingsDirect and RatingsXpress, one, a delivery over our feeds, and one, a platform that's used by customers to manage their risk. RatingsDirect is a product that, if any of you are users, you probably know it. It had grown a bit long in the tooth. It was lacking some of the analytical and user-friendly capabilities that it should have had. Still a growing product, but it needed a relaunch. We did launch that about six weeks ago now. Customer reception's been exceptional, and we're continuing to roll out new functionality on the new platform, so we're pretty excited about how that will continue to grow.
Got it. So, you know, you obviously have a pretty broad portfolio. How do you think about, you know, what are the white spaces? Maybe how you think about cleaning up the portfolio, perhaps, even since there's so much in there?
Yeah. I do think it's important for us to remain focused. It's a big segment of services, and we have a lot of different vectors for growth. We focus around five core areas. Private markets has been a big focus for us. Supply chain, a big focus for us. Credit and risk management, expanding the capabilities of that desktop, sustainability. These are areas where we're highly focused, know we have a very significant footprint today, and the opportunity to expand our existing product set, but also add adjacent to it. There are other things in the portfolio that maybe don't support that as much. We'll look selectively and be thoughtful about trimming there where appropriate. But you'll see, even in this current year, we've done several acquisitions.
We acquired the other half of something called PMC, which is a private company data management capability. We acquired ChartIQ, leading charting capability on the market today. Within 90 days, we had that up and running within Cap IQ Pro. We now have the leading charting capability on the desktop. We bought a company called TruSight, which was a competitive product to our KY3P, our vendor management tool, that was owned by and run by a group of banks. We now brought all of those banks into our platform, and that's now continuing to grow. So we'll use both, acquisition and pairing where appropriate, to stay focused in these core areas.
Got it. Ewout, maybe I can ask you the same question for the broader company, and maybe we'll just call it a capital allocation question, but I think you said minimal M&A. Can you just remind us of your buyback and dividend policy? But then the question is, as a broader company, how do you keep evaluating whether you still have the right, mix of business?
Yeah. Maybe first on the portfolio itself. We are always looking at our portfolio. There's always discipline. At any point in time, we should say, "Okay, these are the businesses we have. They have an opportunity to prove themselves." But over time, we will be very disciplined portfolio managers. You have seen us doing that over the last few years, including selling engineering solutions, of course, earlier this year. And I think if you look at the assessment to prove yourself within the portfolio, I think it's just two particular factors. One is the strategic rationale, because it is important that the total company is better. It adds value to the total enterprise by being part of the portfolio. I think that is an element to prove. And then, of course, financial performance is the second element to prove.
With respect to capital allocation, I think not so much different, but I would say a boring, very stable, predictable answer is the best thing in this area. We continue to drop off a lot of free cash flow. We will return at least 85% to our shareholders, at least 15%, max 50% for some small tuck-in and bolt-on acquisitions. Those need to be in the strategic areas that we have identified that are important for us as a company. So they should really help and enhance some of those growth areas like energy transition, sustainability, private markets with supply chain, and so on. And obviously from a valuation perspective, it should remain attractive as an opportunity as well. So very much similar to what you have heard in the past.
Got it. Adam, you mentioned private markets. Private credit comes up a lot as a big opportunity. MSCI just made a move to acquire the remaining stake of Burgiss, so they're obviously making the same call there. In your portfolio, like, what are the private market capabilities? And, you know, how do you think of yourself as in position to take advantage of these?
I think it's an exciting market. I think it's going to continue to grow significantly. And I think as private capital becomes more common in the portfolios of, not just institutions, but some of the high net worth individuals or other individual portfolios, you'll see an expansion in the need for evaluations, reporting, at least to meet some levels of regulatory insight. So all of those capabilities that we operate, so portfolio monitoring, things like high level, private company valuation, been a very rapidly growing business for us. Building benchmarks, like our partnership with Cambridge. Building reference data and other pricing tools, reporting tools, data visualization, bringing in public company comparables into our private portfolio management tools. On the credit side, you mentioned private credit.
The combination of WSO with the leading platform for managing syndicated loans, that credit experience, now we have a combined product, WSO iLEVEL product, for managing private credit. We've put on nearly $100 billion of AUM just this year. This is a big area of growth for us in providing those services. How large a role private credit ultimately plays in markets? You know, I think that's more an outlier, so a small part of the market today, but growing very rapidly and a lot of participants that want to be involved in that market. But with that comes the challenges of managing those portfolios, and those are the tools we provide. So I think continues to be a big area of growth for us.
So, Ewout, you know, you get a lot of this question around private credit and the Ratings market. I know even though it's relatively small, but literally every day there's a big headline around it. So can you just help, you know, contextualize it for us? Like, is it an opportunity or near-term risk or some opportunity? How do we think of it?
Yeah. My view is, Manav, is this is too much positioned as a black or white kind of topic. Actually, this is an area that on the one hand, you could say private credit takes away from the market of, public debt, but the public debt market is anyhow so much larger. And then secondly, we have actually a really large opportunity within private credit. We can raise private debt, and we're already doing that today. Private credit at some point needs to be securitized, or come back to the market in secondary trading, so there needs to be objective evaluation of risk and other elements to that. So these are all the aspects that we can bring. It can be held to maturity in insurance portfolios.
It's important there to be also have an objective measure of the credit risk and what is the appropriate capital charge behind it. So there's many different areas, and we're working very closely with all the large private equity firms to help them in this space and to provide our rating services to, to them. So it's actually a large opportunity, and we're already really recording a lot of, of activity in this space.
Got it. Maybe in the last five minutes, let's just touch on GenAI, since everyone loves to talk about it. Adam, maybe just to start with you, just your view on GenAI and the opportunity within MI. I think everyone appreciates that data is going to be ultimately the differentiator. So maybe just, you know, talk about which particular data sets you think, you know, will be your, your key differentiator.
Yeah. I'm glad you said that. I don't know that everybody immediately knows that data really is the differentiator, when we start talking about Gen AI. Let me take a half step back. AI, forget Gen AI for a moment. You know, we acquired Kensho many years ago. Use of artificial intelligence in our applications has been an ongoing part of our development, whether it's the way we enable customers to discover keywords within documents and put them in an organized way, connecting data together through products developed by Kensho, called Link or NERD. These are acronyms, the ability to link data sets together. We have many, many different things across the firm. We took an inventory this year. We've released eight AI-driven products or internally used products within the division, just in 2023.
And that's not large language models, generative AI, which is the buzz that I know everybody's thinking about. That presents a whole new set of opportunities for us, not just the expertise of Kensho, but the application of our data set to large language models. We have probably the world's leading set of what we call training data or data that can be used to train a model. That's very powerful. Having that data organized with the right provenance, accuracy, et cetera, critical. We'll partner with different market participants, but we also have an internal capability to build models in a way that allow us to produce really interesting product capabilities for our customer. To give you one quick example, I mean, I can give you a couple, but, probably the most interesting, ChatGPT, probably everybody in the room played with it.
It was kind of interesting. It sends you back a paragraph. Most sophisticated financial analysts at institutions can use that for a couple of things, but at the end, not actually that useful. What would be useful is when you put in a question or something you're investigating, that it returns to you a summarized view and source documents. You can actually click through and get to what you need. You can construct a table from it. You can construct a report from it. You can modify the report based on new query that it searches and then generates. So that's more complicated, and that requires the application of a lot of expertise and high provenance data.... That's for us, what that vision is, right?
If we can, within Capital IQ Pro, for example, accelerate the capabilities of an analyst from a first-year analyst to a third-year analyst through an AI-driven tool that has the right kind of accuracy and, you know, click-through provenance, that's a very powerful tool. Does that have a specific revenue attached to it? I don't know. But does it have a competitive distinction? Yes. And if we can train it on our data and with our expertise, I think that gives us an interesting edge.
And Ewout, maybe if you can end us here, but, you know, the question's more around obviously Kensho specifically. I know you've overseen Kensho for a while here, but, you know, a lot of your peers obviously doing a lot of, you know, sessions around the capabilities there. But just your-- you've said Kensho has given you an advantage, so maybe just talk about why, and, you know, eventually, maybe large language models will be commoditized, but that's the little edge with your financial analysis and stuff, too, today. So maybe just talk about this.
Yeah. So our advantage is we have already five years of experience dealing with AI within the company. I still recall when we acquired Kensho, there were a lot of eyebrows that went up and say, "What are you doing?" but clearly, I think over time, this has been a huge game changer for, for the company to be very early in embedding AI tools, as Adam explained, within our, within our company, within our tools, within the product that we provide to our customers. Secondly, is the data sets. In the end, training these models depends on the quality of the data sets, and we can put together the largest data sets that's specifically so-called tokens, that is formatted in order to train these models. Just to tell you maybe one interesting anecdote here.
We launched two months ago a large language model data contest within the company. There was a crowdsourcing initiative where we asked help from all of our people, because in the end, we have everyone in the company working on data technology, data science, or any form any form in between, and they all want to be part of this. And we ask them, "Help us to deliver your data in this format so that we can really train our in-house industry-specific language model that we are developing with Kensho as quickly as possible." We got, within one month, 24,000 submissions. 24,000 submissions from a crowdsource internal initiative, which I thought was fantastic. So we can really use that as a differentiator. And then, in the end, our brand.
Our brand is, of course, also very important because most of our customers will say, "You know what? I can do a few things. Either I'm going to develop a analyst support or copilot myself, I can outsource it to a large tech company and ask them to help me with it, or I can buy it from one of my trusted providers, someone that I already know, that helps me with my data, with my workflow tools, that has a brand that I trust and rely upon." We should be able to deliver that last element to it.
So actually, you're hearing us less talking about it, but you should interpret this that we're more doing it, we're more developing it, and our objective is to really be one of the first to market with an actual production-grade level tool that we can provide to our customers. Yes, maybe over time, that becomes standardized and commoditized, but the first-mover advantage in this space can be really a big differentiator.
It makes sense. Looking forward to this update, and we're just out of time. Thank you both, Adam and Ewout, for being here, and thanks, everyone, for coming as well. Thanks a lot.