David A. Steinberg, CEO of Zeta Global Holdings, at the New York Stock Exchange.
Source: NYSE
Measuring the strength of the sprawling U.S. economy is no easy task, so one company is sending artificial intelligence to do the job.
The Zeta Economic Index, released Monday, uses generative AI to analyze what its developers call “trillions of behavioral signals,” focused primarily on consumer activity, to predict growth at both a broad health level and a separate measure of stability.
At its core, the index will measure online and offline activity across eight categories. The aim is to provide a comprehensive overview that includes standard economic data points such as unemployment and retail sales combined with high-frequency information for the AI era.
“The algorithm looks at traditional economic indicators that you would normally look at. “But within our proprietary algorithm, we then capture the behavioral and transactional data of 240 million Americans that no one else has,” said David Steinberg, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Zeta Global.
“So instead of looking at the data in the rearview mirror like everyone else, we’re trying to release it in advance to give a 30-day overview of economic developments,” he added.
The eight industries the economic index uses include automotive activity, hospitality and entertainment, financial services such as credit line extensions, healthcare, retail sales, technology and travel.
As a measure of stability, the index will aim to measure consumers’ ability to cope with fluctuations in the economy.
Together, the goal is to provide something more expansive than gross domestic product and similar measures of growth.
In June there was good news for both indicators: the economic value was 66 and the stability index was 66.1. The two values correspond respectively to “active” and “stable” in terms of the health of the economy.
“This is perhaps a more holistic way to really predict the economy because you’re not just taking the existing economic indicators around GDP, employment and all the different reports that relate to different vertical sales, but you’re also overlaying those,” Steinberg said.
“We really look at what they’re actually spending. We look at what they actually read and research,” he added. “We see all this information and can make a better forecast.”
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2024-07-01 18:02:03
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