Rightmove used its AGM trading update on Friday to make a pointed case to the market: artificial intelligence is now central to how Britain’s biggest property portal is building products, but it is not yet changing where most homebuyers begin their search. That distinction matters. For a London-listed platform trying to defend its moat, AI looks more like an efficiency and conversion tool than a wholesale traffic disruptor.
AI is speeding up the machine, not replacing it
According to Rightmove’s 8 May AGM trading update, the group now has 43 AI initiatives in flight, up from 31 disclosed in its FY25 presentation on 27 February. It also delivered more than 2,500 technology releases in the first four months of 2026, more than 20 per cent above the same period last year, with April marking the highest monthly release count in the company’s history.
The more interesting figure was not the AI pipeline, but the traffic mix. Rightmove said less than 0.5 per cent of visits come from large language models, and that referral flow has been flat since the end of 2025. At the same time, the company said more than 85 per cent of traffic remains organic and direct. It also said it still captures more than 80 per cent of all consumer time spent on UK property portals on Comscore’s measure, while Similarweb and Sensor Tower put that share above 70 per cent.
In plain terms, British consumers are still opening Rightmove, not asking a chatbot to do the job for them.
The housing backdrop is steady enough to support the bet
The operating backdrop is not booming, but it is stable enough for Rightmove to keep investing. The company reaffirmed 2026 revenue growth guidance of 8 to 10 per cent, strategic growth area revenue growth of 20 to 30 per cent, underlying operating profit growth of 3 to 5 per cent and underlying EPS growth of at least 5 per cent, all in the AGM statement.
That guidance sits against a mixed housing market. Rightmove said average two-year and five-year fixed mortgage rates were both 5.1 per cent, up from 4.3 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively at the end of 2025. Even so, available listings were at an eleven-year high and were 1 per cent ahead of the same point last year by the end of April. In rentals, demand is easing but still tight, with an average nine enquiries per available property versus a pre-Covid norm of six to seven.
What City investors should watch next
The strategic question is whether AI can deepen monetisation before it meaningfully reshapes discovery. Rightmove’s FY25 presentation showed a 70 per cent underlying operating margin, 19,272 members and more than 6,000 releases across 2025. That is the profile of a mature UK internet platform using AI to reinforce a dominant position, not to reinvent itself from scratch.
If the company is right, the near-term upside comes from better lead quality, faster product cycles and higher ARPA, not from a sudden chatbot land grab. The next test for investors is simple: can conversational search and the wider AI toolset lift partner economics before the autumn mortgage market tells a different story?
Sources: Rightmove AGM trading update, 8 May 2026; Rightmove FY25 presentation, 27 February 2026; Comscore and Similarweb/Sensor Tower data cited by Rightmove.
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