ADP US National Employment Report Preliminary Estimate for February 7, 2026

First, it’s great to be back at the NABE meetings and it’s great to see you all again. Thanks to Ellen Zentner for moderating. With the storms and the travel problems, Ellen never wants to get involved with me. The last time Ellen moderated a NABE event where I was involved was on Zoom in 2020 during Covid, before I was ever at the Fed. Our panel was at lunch time. My driver’s license was expiring so I had to go to the DMV, and I got there the minute it opened. But I ended up stuck in a Covid-procedures line for three and a half hours where you weren’t allowed to use a phone or leave the line. I missed the first half of the panel and ended up having to do my presentation from my car in the DMV parking lot. Sorry, Ellen. This time it wasn’t my fault. CHICAGO FED'S GOOLSBEE: 'NOT OBVIOUS' FED'S RATE STANCE IS STILL RESTRICTIVE FED'S GOOLSBEE: 3% INFLATION 'NOT GOOD ENOUGH' FED'S GOOLSBEE: OPTIMISTIC THERE CAN BE MORE RATE CUTS THIS YEAR, BUT NOT UNTIL INFLATION IS HEADING BACK TO TARGET GOOLSBEE: CAN'T BANK ON COMING PRODUCTIVITY TO LOWER INFLATION OR USE THAT AS A RATIONALE FOR RATE CUTS GOOLSBEE: INFLATION PROGRESS HAS STOPPED, NOT OBVIOUS THAT… GOOLSBEE: CORE SERVICES INFLATION EX HOUSING IS STUBBORNLY HIGH, NEED TO BE VIGILANT GOOLSBEE: LOWERING RATES IN ANTICIPATION OF PRODUCTIVITY GAINS COULD LEAD TO OVERHEATING GOOLSBEE: CONSUMER SPENDING, NOT AI INVESTMENT, HAS BEEN MAIN DRIVER OF ECONOMIC GROWTH GOOLSBEE: LOW…

Thank you, President Collins, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. Artificial intelligence is a technological phenomenon that is taking the world by storm. We read about it every day and many of us have used it in some way or another. In my lifetime, I have never seen a technological revolution like this—and I have seen the birth of space exploration, the rise of the personal computer, the explosion of the internet and then smartphones. While all transformative, none match the potential that AI has in changing our lives and doing so at breathtaking speed. Firms, households, and every government are all trying to incorporate it into the way they function and operate. And I am here to tell you that the Federal Reserve is no different. So, given the theme of this conference and the audience makeup, I felt this was a good time to discuss how the Federal Reserve System is using artificial intelligence to build and optimize the systems that support our work, as well as embedding it into other internal applications. Now most people associate the Federal Reserve with monetary policy—interest rates, inflation, and the decisions that make headlines when Fed officials meet eight times a year. But the bulk of our daily activity is doing operational work such as payments, financial management, human resources, and providing financial services to the U.S. Treasury. A critical element of this operational work is technology. AI is the latest technology that we are building into our daily work to achieve operational efficiencies. The Fed was designed in 1913 as a system of regional bank ? FED’S WALLER DOES NOT COMMENT ON MONETARY POLICY, ECONOMIC OUTLOOK ? FED’S WALLER: FED ADOPTING A SYSTEM-WIDE APPROACH TO DEPLOYING AI TECHNOLOGY ? FED’S WALLER: FED IS BEING VERY CAREFUL INTEGRATING AI INTO OPERATIONS