Fed Governor Waller Addresses AI and Economic Data at FRED Con 2026

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller delivered remarks at FRED Con 2026, a conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis focused on data, artificial intelligence, and economic storytelling. The event, themed "Navigating Trust, AI and Storytelling in a World of Data," brought together analysts, researchers, and policymakers to examine how emerging technologies are reshaping the way economic information is produced and consumed.

Waller's speech, framed around a playful comparison to the iconic monster-movie rivalry — pitting FRED, the St. Louis Fed's widely used Federal Reserve Economic Data platform, against AI-driven data tools — addressed substantive questions about trust, accuracy, and the reliability of machine-generated economic analysis. FRED hosts hundreds of thousands of data series drawn from scores of domestic and international sources, making it one of the most heavily used public economic databases in the world.

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The address comes at a moment when AI applications are rapidly expanding their footprint in economic research, financial analysis, and public data interpretation. Central banks and policymakers are increasingly weighing both the opportunities and the risks that AI presents for how data is contextualized, communicated, and ultimately trusted by markets and the public.

Waller's appearance at a conference centered on data transparency and storytelling reflects the Fed's broader institutional interest in ensuring that economic information remains accessible, accurate, and resistant to distortion — whether that distortion originates from human error or algorithmic misstep. The tension between powerful new AI capabilities and the gold-standard reliability that platforms like FRED represent was a central theme of the forum.

Continue reading at FRB: Speeches for the full text of Governor Waller's remarks.