Publisher of 'For Dummies' series is training AI with its content, and its stock is rallying

By Steve Gelsi

John Wiley & Sons up 16% on brighter outlook, AI potential

A book publisher known for its "For Dummies" titles is getting a double-digit boost to its stock price Thursday after revealing it's teaching artificial-intelligence programs do a better job.

John Wiley & Sons' stock (WLY) was up by 16% after the publisher said it is "seeing significant interest in leveraging our authoritative content to train AI and machine-learning models."

The Hoboken, N.J.-based owner of titles such as "Hacking for Dummies" and "Windows for Dummies" said its learning-unit revenue benefited from a $23 million content-rights project for training generative AI with "a technology company" that it did not identify by name.

John Wiley also said it will realize another generative-AI project with a second big technology company in fiscal 2025. It also did not name that company.

The AI update came along with the company's fourth-quarter adjusted profit and a fiscal 2025 outlook that both beat analyst estimates.

John Wiley said its fourth-quarter net income dropped to $25.27 million, or 46 cents a share, from $68.34 million, or $1.22 a share, in the year-ago period.

Adjusted fourth-quarter earnings of $1.21 a share beat the analyst estimate of 81 cents a share.

Fourth-quarter revenue fell to $468.5 million from $526.1 million but beat the FactSet consensus estimate of $438.7 million.

John Wiley expects adjusted fiscal 2025 earnings of $3.25 to $3.60 a share, ahead of the FactSet consensus estimate of $3.10 a share.

Including Thursday's moves, John Wiley's stock is now up 31.8 % in 2024, compared with a gain of 18 % by the Nasdaq COMP.

Also read: News Corp. shares climb on OpenAI licensing pact

Tomi Kilgore contributed.

-Steve Gelsi

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06-13-24 1006ET

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