Jan 30 (Reuters) - Britain's Sage Group ( SGGEF ) on

Thursday maintained its full-year forecasts after the software

firm posted a 10% growth in underlying revenue for the first

quarter, buoyed by higher demand, especially in North America,

its fastest growing region.

Sage has invested heavily in cloud services in recent years,

and it is now counting on surging demand for artificial

intelligence products and services to deploy generative AI in

its offerings to help small business owners with insights.

The company, whose accountancy software is used by millions

of small businesses, reported underlying total revenue of 612

million pounds ($760.84 million) for the three months ended Dec.

31.

($1 = 0.8044 pounds)