New index uses artificial intelligence tools to measure U.S. economic growth more broadly | Real Time Headlines

Measuring the power of the massive U.S. economy isn’t easy, so one company is sending artificial intelligence to do the job.

this Zeta Economic IndexLaunched on Monday, the app uses generative artificial intelligence to analyze what its developers call “trillions of behavioral signals,” focusing on consumer activity to gain growth across broad health levels and separate stability metrics.

At its core, the index will measure eight categories of online and offline activity, aiming to provide a comprehensive view that combines standard economic data points such as unemployment and retail sales with high-frequency information from the age of artificial intelligence.

“The algorithm looks at traditional economic indicators that you would typically look at. But in our proprietary algorithm, we are getting behavioral data and transaction data on 240 million Americans that no one else has,” said a partner at the firm David Steinberg said.

“So rather than just looking at the data in the rear-view mirror like others, we try to release the data in advance to provide a 30-day snapshot of what’s going on in the economy,” he added.

The eight industry verticals used in the economic index include automotive events, restaurants and entertainment, financial services such as credit line expansion, healthcare, retail, technology and travel.

For the stability indicator, the index will look at measuring consumers’ ability to cope with economic fluctuations.

In summary, our goal is to provide a broader indicator than gross domestic product and similar measures of growth.

In June, there was good news for both indicators, with the economy score at 66 and the stability index at 66.1. These two readings correspond to “active” and “stable” levels of economic health, respectively.

“It’s probably a more comprehensive way to really forecast the economy because you’re not just taking all the different reported economic indicators around GDP, employment, sales in different verticals, but you’re layering on top of that. ,” Steinberg said.

“What we’re really looking at is what they’re actually spending. We’re looking at what they’re actually reading and researching,” he added. “We see all this information, which allows us to make better predictions.”