AI fears hit MoneySuperMarket as ChatGPT launches rival service

The owner of MoneySuperMarket has lost £144m in value following the launch of a new insurance price comparison app on ChatGPT.On Tuesday, shares in Mony Group, which owns some of the biggest price comparison websites in Britain, fell by up to 13.8pc as investors feared it could be undercut by artificial intelligence-powered rivals.It suffered a hit alongside insurance company Admiral and GoCompare-owner Future Plc as fears over AI-disruption continued to hit the London stock market following a rout last week.The share price drops were sparked by the launch of a new app that lets users check home insurance prices by typing descriptions of their properties directly into ChatGPT.The Tuio Home app, which was developed by Spanish start-up Tuio, led to fears that comparison websites could suffer as their customers turn to AI chatbots instead.Alongside MoneySuperMarket, Mony Group owns comparison websites including TravelSupermarket, cash-back website Quidco and MoneySavingExpert, the consumer finance website started by Martin Lewis.Future, the British publishing business that owns GoCompare, saw its shares on the London Stock Exchange fall by up to 6.6pc on similar concerns, while shares in Admiral fell by over 2pc.It comes after shares in US insurance companies were hit by similar concerns on Monday following the launch of a new AI-powered price-comparison app by American company Insurify.In a similar manner to Tuio’s new tool, Insurify’s app lets users compare the prices of insurance products by typing their queries directly into ChatGPT.Admiral previously sold its own car insurance comparison website Compare.com to Insurify in March 2023, having sold Confused.com two years earlier in April 2021.Analysts at RBC said the launch of the new AI powered comparison apps would be particularly damaging to American insurers, as they noted the market for comparison websites is much less developed in the US.The impact on British comparison websites is likely to have been “overstated”, RBC’s analysts added, as they suggested companies like Mony Group would be well placed to develop similar AI powered apps themselves.Last week, software stocks were also hit by concerns surrounding AI disruption, following the launch of a new legal chatbot by Anthropic, the US company which developed Claude.It led to sharp drops in software developers share prices, including RELX, the data and analytics firm formerly known as Reed Elsevier, and Sage, which makes accounting software.