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Speaker 2: chief global economist, Piper Sandler, is bracing for a soft
Speaker 2: employment report on Friday. She joins us now for more. Nancy,
Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning. What's a soft employment report on Friday?
Speaker 3: Well, we're assuming about eighty thousand. That's maybe a little
Speaker 3: bit more than consensus, but as of now, eighty is
Speaker 3: our best aty good these days, Probably eighty is better
Speaker 3: than something closer to zero, to be sure. But it
Speaker 3: is a very very clear shift down, and you see
Speaker 3: it in a lot of data.
Speaker 1: Companies aren't hiring.
Speaker 3: You see that in continuing claims, they're not firing aggressively.
Speaker 3: Initial claims are still relatively are still relatively low. Your
Speaker 3: point earlier on the quit rate, the quick rate is
Speaker 3: coming down. People are reluctant to leave. And just ask consumers,
Speaker 3: I mean the Conference boards survey of is it hard
Speaker 3: to get a job or is it easy to get
Speaker 3: a job as a metric, I've used my entire career
Speaker 3: and consumers say it is hard to get a job.
Speaker 3: So there's clearly been a shift down in the labor market.
Speaker 3: Why companies are trying to protect their profit margins is.
Speaker 4: Eighty thousand and even worse number because of the downward revisions.
Speaker 4: To Mike's point that the longer you wait, the more
Speaker 4: unclear the data is in the short run, but longer
Speaker 4: term you do get just as clear of a look
Speaker 4: in terms of responses.
Speaker 3: So the household employment data, which comes out with the
Speaker 3: unemployment rate, actually historically at turning points is better than payroll.
Speaker 3: I've studied this again my entire career was first written
Speaker 3: about in the nineteen seventies. Unlike payroll, the household employment
Speaker 3: data aren't revised. There's once a year population adjustment, but
Speaker 3: you can smooth that out. There's been no growth in
Speaker 3: the household employment survey for the past twelve months.
Speaker 1: And then on.
Speaker 3: Next Tuesday, you're going to see the QCEW, the quarterly
Speaker 3: Census of Employment in wages, and that's going to likely
Speaker 3: show a very sharp reduction in payroll from March of
Speaker 3: twenty five back over the past year of about at
Speaker 3: least eight hundred thousand. That is, payroll is going to
Speaker 3: start to look more like the household data. Consumers, No,
Speaker 3: it's a week job market. They're cutting back on highly
Speaker 3: cyclical stuff, both on the good side and on the
Speaker 3: service side. So the idea that you're getting new news
Speaker 3: from the payroll report to me.
Speaker 1: Is a little misleading.
Speaker 3: Consumers have already reacted to this week employment backdrop.
Speaker 4: When does this term become a problem because it's not
Speaker 4: a downturn, it's not a downturn yet and it doesn't
Speaker 4: seem to be heading toward any kind of recession. But
Speaker 4: this low higher low fire dynamic has continued and people
Speaker 4: don't feel very good. But companies are doing just fine,
Speaker 4: as we see in the earning So when does this
Speaker 4: become a problem.
Speaker 3: That's so important that companies are doing well in this environment.
Speaker 3: Before you see you can see an upturn in the
Speaker 3: job market, companies have to make money. That's been a
Speaker 3: beauty of the US economy over the past decades that
Speaker 3: companies are allowed to stop hiring and or in some
Speaker 3: cases fire people so they can rebuild their profitability, and
Speaker 3: that thing gives them the ability to hire people. So
Speaker 3: I think some of the most bullish news for employment
Speaker 3: in twenty six is the fact that two q s
Speaker 3: AP earnings came in double what they were supposed to
Speaker 3: have been and hit a record and hit a record high.
Speaker 3: Prior to every upturn in employment growth, you first need
Speaker 3: an upturn in earnings and profits, and we're seeing it.
Speaker 3: So kudos to American companies.
Speaker 2: Is that what your full coasting now? A rebound and
Speaker 2: economic activity?
Speaker 3: We are this year you're one one and a half percent,
Speaker 3: but you're already seeing capital spending turn up. Individual companies
Speaker 3: are seeing it. You saw it in the new order
Speaker 3: data yesterday. Why is that happening? Well, One, the Fed
Speaker 3: cut rates one hundred basis points a year ago, and
Speaker 3: it takes about a year for that to work through
Speaker 3: the system. Second, you do have this full capex appreciation,
Speaker 3: which is the most significant capital spending booster shot since
Speaker 3: Reagan in the early early eighties.
Speaker 1: You're seeing it in company data.
Speaker 3: So we have three percent GDP growth next year, and
Speaker 3: we don't think three is a new two. We think
Speaker 3: next year inflation does shift back down to two percent.
Speaker 3: You'll lap the tariff increases, and you'll also see further
Speaker 3: acceleration and productivity slowing unit.
Speaker 1: That's a great setup.
Speaker 2: You're looking for three percent GDP, two percent inflation, where's
Speaker 2: the FED and all of that.
Speaker 3: We don't need an aggressive FED in this cycle. I
Speaker 3: get one that would make me worry about inflation. In
Speaker 3: the back half of twenty six, you have stronger potential
Speaker 3: GDP growth, which is about two and a half two
Speaker 3: two and a half percent. FED funds are pretty much
Speaker 3: in line with that. Nominal GDP growth of about five
Speaker 3: FED ones are a little bit lower than that. The
Speaker 3: problems of the seventies happened because the FED would shove
Speaker 3: rates down way below nominal growth, creating a boom and
Speaker 3: then eventual bust cycle.
Speaker 1: And so we think maybe one cut.
Speaker 3: Would be healthy, but more than that, I would then
Speaker 3: start to worry about inflation.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's take a bait.
Speaker 2: Nancy new fetchare comes along, huge selection process and they're
Speaker 2: going to deliver one cut in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: Again, if the economy is help if you go back
Speaker 3: and look at the nineties, which is where we think
Speaker 3: there are echoes of the nineties, The tech tech obviously
Speaker 3: strength in the nineteen nineties, a green span ninety five,
Speaker 3: I believe, cut rates just once and you had three
Speaker 3: and a half percent GDP.
Speaker 1: Growth with inflation slowing.
Speaker 3: You didn't need a lower interest rate in environment because
Speaker 3: you had healthy potential GDP growth, stronger productivity growth, and
Speaker 3: strong very strong corporate profits. And those are the things
Speaker 3: that were driving growth, not lower interest rates. Again, that
Speaker 3: creates problems like another house rice bubble and or boom
Speaker 3: and nominal GDP growth, which then opens the door to inflation.
Speaker 4: How has artificial intelligence changed the nature of that rebound
Speaker 4: given the fact that this isn't necessarily going to be
Speaker 4: a job full recovery that can be equally distributed to
Speaker 4: a lot of different people in different sectors.
Speaker 3: So under the hood, there's always creative destruction in the
Speaker 3: employment and the employment data.
Speaker 1: Just look at the retail data.
Speaker 3: When Amazon came on in the nineteen nineties, you decimated
Speaker 3: retail employment in certain sectors. Online online touched sectors in particular,
Speaker 3: but at the end of the day, overall retail employment rose,
Speaker 3: and so creative destruction within the job market has gone on,
Speaker 3: not just back in the early nineteen hundreds, but even
Speaker 3: over the past ten twenty years. Tech employment has not
Speaker 3: been a driver of the employment cycle. So I view
Speaker 3: AI as more of a productivity enhancing, profit boosting mechanism
Speaker 3: that actually is going to create more jobs because companies
Speaker 3: are going to have stronger earnings.
Speaker 1: You're using it and you love the page book.
Speaker 4: Le's what you're doing that you think actually how it
Speaker 4: affects your job?
Speaker 3: Well for us, my colleagues are are very talented and
Speaker 3: using CHATBT five you can actually write code for the
Speaker 3: page book and get a sense of what what what
Speaker 3: the direction of the economy is from from AI. So
Speaker 3: I'm a product of technological innovation. I started with a typewriter.
Speaker 3: Obviously that I went to a computer, et cetera. I'll stop,
Speaker 3: but a technological innovation in this industry is not new.
Speaker 3: It just improves our ability to do but hopefully not
Speaker 3: always a better a better economic analyst.
Speaker 2: Stay with us. Multiple IMPERG surveillance coming up after this.
Speaker 2: Marc Abana, the head of US Right Strategy Bank for
Speaker 2: America Global Research is with us around a table for
Speaker 2: more mark and morning, good morning. It's going to see
Speaker 2: you like a lot's change, what's changed for you?
Speaker 5: So we think that investors should really be focused on
Speaker 5: where the cutting trough in this cycle is. That's still
Speaker 5: around three percent. The FED thinks three percent is neutral.
Speaker 5: The market seems to believe that that's credible and that
Speaker 5: the FED will head there increasingly. At least for our
Speaker 5: rate strategy team, we see three percent as almost a
Speaker 5: cutting ceiling. They're going to at least cut to there,
Speaker 5: we think, and we think that the market is not
Speaker 5: fully appreciating the potential range of outcomes below three percent
Speaker 5: that the FED could take us to.
Speaker 1: And that range of outcomes.
Speaker 5: We think exists because you do have a moderating labor market,
Speaker 5: you do have inflation that is expected to peak around
Speaker 5: the end of this year or first half of next year.
Speaker 5: But we also think that you're going to have a
Speaker 5: composition of individuals at the FED that are going to
Speaker 5: be targeting potentially different objectives than the current FED is.
Speaker 5: And specifically, what I mean by that is, think about,
Speaker 5: let's say, how the FED judges the natural rate of unemployment.
Speaker 5: The FED thinks that in the long run this level
Speaker 5: is four point two percent. They don't know that for sure,
Speaker 5: but that's their estimate. What's to stop a new composition
Speaker 5: of FED officials from targeting and potential three and a
Speaker 5: half percent or sub four percent type of natural rate
Speaker 5: of unemployment? And we think that you're going to increasingly
Speaker 5: hear these types of arguments from individuals that are being
Speaker 5: considered to adopt leadership positions at the FED. I'll certainly
Speaker 5: be listening for that on Thursday with Myron's testimony, because
Speaker 5: we have heard from other, let's say FED share contenders
Speaker 5: that they're open to this idea. And if the FED
Speaker 5: does indeed adopt that type of approach, that opens up
Speaker 5: the range of outcomes for where the funds rate can
Speaker 5: go well below three percent. We think you want to
Speaker 5: be received five year ois to benefit from that. It
Speaker 5: also means that you should be expecting that longer run
Speaker 5: inflation expectations move up because they are still very well anchored.
Speaker 5: We agree with the Fed's assessment on that. We think
Speaker 5: that they can be moving up. We think that the
Speaker 5: inflation curve can be steepening, and we think that the
Speaker 5: nominal curve should also be steepening in that type of environment. Finally,
Speaker 5: we like being short thirty year asset swamp spreads because
Speaker 5: we do worry about some of this supply demand dynamic
Speaker 5: at the back end of the rates curve. If the
Speaker 5: Fed is let's say, cutting to rates lower than what
Speaker 5: many of us would think are justified by fundamentals today.
Speaker 1: Who's going to buy the bond?
Speaker 5: If you're worried about upside inflation risks and the deficit
Speaker 5: is still not improving materially. Who's going to take down
Speaker 5: all that long duration treasury supply? So we think you
Speaker 5: want to be positioned for them. We like being short
Speaker 5: thirty r asset swap spreads to do so.
Speaker 4: So as you talk, I'm thinking, I'm going to hide
Speaker 4: in gold. I'm going to hide in the most pro
Speaker 4: growth stocks because essentially they're going to juice everything. I mean, essentially,
Speaker 4: isn't what you're saying really positive for stocks, really positive
Speaker 4: for gold, terrible for the dollar, and don't even touch
Speaker 4: that thirty year bond? Yes? Yes, yes, yes, okay, So
Speaker 4: that's basically what you're looking for right now, and.
Speaker 5: We just think that again, you can focus on fundamentals
Speaker 5: and fundamentals and our economists, and kudos to them, are
Speaker 5: still very much rooted in that they're thinking, this is
Speaker 5: an economy that's not headed into a recession, where you've
Speaker 5: got stagflationary risks, where inflation is going to be a
Speaker 5: three percent or higher by the end of the year,
Speaker 5: and where the FED is running the risk of a
Speaker 5: policy mistake by cutting later this year, if that's indeed
Speaker 5: what they do. And so they're thinking, why would the
Speaker 5: FED be doing this? And I understand that from a
Speaker 5: fundamental perspective, but we've all seen the headlines. We've all
Speaker 5: seen at least or we've heard some of the approaches
Speaker 5: that individuals were being nominated or considered for FED leadership
Speaker 5: positions are espousing, and all of those, at least me
Speaker 5: as a rate strategist, say, why are they going to
Speaker 5: stop at three?
Speaker 1: Why would they do that?
Speaker 5: Waller is just saying, no, we're going to cut to neutral,
Speaker 5: or I think we should be heading to neutral, and
Speaker 5: I think neutral is three percent, But he'll be the
Speaker 5: first to tell you that he doesn't know where neutral is.
Speaker 5: And then once you start to contemplate some of these
Speaker 5: other arguments, we suspect about lower natural rate of unemployment
Speaker 5: and really strong GDP and deficit financing levels, which is
Speaker 5: not in the FEDS mandate, but certainly you hear that
Speaker 5: line of argument from administration officials. Once that creeps into
Speaker 5: the dialogue, then why would they be stopping at three?
Speaker 5: So we just think again that the distribution of rate
Speaker 5: outcomes is much greater to the downside than what the
Speaker 5: market is currently pricing, not necessarily due to fundamentals, but
Speaker 5: due to a shift in the approach for how the
Speaker 5: FED will likely be thinking about setting monetary policy.
Speaker 2: You know, I give you a lot of credit for
Speaker 2: trying to force people to think out sign a conventional framework,
Speaker 2: because I think that what we could say next year
Speaker 2: could be very unconventional.
Speaker 4: The idea of targeting something sub four point two percent
Speaker 4: on the jobs market and ignoring the inflation possibility. I'm
Speaker 4: just thinking, I mean, I understand why people are pro
Speaker 4: risk in that environment, because why wouldn't you be pro
Speaker 4: risk at a time where they're trying to juice growth
Speaker 4: at the expense potentially of inflation.
Speaker 1: I done it round.
Speaker 2: I do think against the clock fifteen twenty seconds.
Speaker 5: Okay, so what stops this? We think two things stop this.
Speaker 5: Number one popular discontent with show inflation the voter.
Speaker 1: But I don't know about you.
Speaker 5: I would imagine that it takes above three percent inflation
Speaker 5: to really bring it, you know, individuals out to the
Speaker 5: ballot box on this issue five or two loss of
Speaker 5: control on the back end, and you're going to be
Speaker 5: looking at best in cutting auction sizes in that event
Speaker 5: or potentially defit using the balance sheet.
Speaker 2: Stay with us multplemperg Savannan's coming up after this, whether
Speaker 2: sayre at New York, let me Cantrell, Pimcoke, letb me Gimonic,
Speaker 2: good morning, September seventeenth. Will she be there?
Speaker 6: Will Lisa Cook be there? I mean we think so,
Speaker 6: we expect so. I mean think obviously this is how
Speaker 6: the court will adjudicate. This is sort of any one's question.
Speaker 6: But assuming that the Court has not sort of definitively
Speaker 6: decided whether this is fraud, we believe that she will
Speaker 6: most likely be there. I think a bigger question in
Speaker 6: some ways is will the Council of Economic Advisors Chairman
Speaker 6: Myron be there? He, of course is going to be
Speaker 6: sitting for sitting for his Senate confirmation hearing, tomorrow. We
Speaker 6: think that is quite aggressive. So Lisa Cook Pop most
Speaker 6: likely will be there again sort of barring any sort
Speaker 6: of core developments, but Chairman Myron probably will not be there.
Speaker 4: How much is it going to be a contentious fight
Speaker 4: with Stephen Myron in those hearings tomorrow versus just paving.
Speaker 1: The way come on down? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Well, I think we've talked about this before. Me The
Speaker 6: Senate confirmation process is not necessarily perfunctory. I think the
Speaker 6: market sort of just assumes that whomever the President any
Speaker 6: president nominates, they'll likely get confirmed. And I think for
Speaker 6: in most cases that is true, but for this particular position,
Speaker 6: in this particular context, we do think that any sort
Speaker 6: of phedenominee is going to be question by Democrats, of course,
Speaker 6: but also by Republicans. And remember that the first step
Speaker 6: towards Senate confirmation is through the Setate Banking Committee. And
Speaker 6: you know that again might just sort of seem like
Speaker 6: a bunch of kind of mumboed process mumbo jumbo, but
Speaker 6: it's actually very important because assuming no Democrats vote for
Speaker 6: Chairman Myron for Fred Governor, that means that he cannot
Speaker 6: lose even one Republican vote, in order to advance to
Speaker 6: the full Senate floor.
Speaker 1: So this so.
Speaker 6: Tomorrow will be very very important. We do expect that
Speaker 6: he will get confirmed, but again probably not in this
Speaker 6: very accelerated time frame, meaning that he'll probably the earliest
Speaker 6: he'll be seated for that film is probably October.
Speaker 4: The controversy over the FED has sucked up a lot
Speaker 4: of oxygen in a lot of time, and I wonder
Speaker 4: how much we ought to.
Speaker 1: Be putting to the idea that we could be facing.
Speaker 4: A government shutdown in a couple of days and I
Speaker 4: will say for a couple of weeks. And I say
Speaker 4: this at a time where globally we're talking about government dysfunction,
Speaker 4: how much it could be affecting some of the fiscal
Speaker 4: worries and markets. Are you expecting us to actually shut
Speaker 4: down again? I mean, is this actually a worry that
Speaker 4: we have to focus on.
Speaker 6: Well, I think that the market is predesensitized because there
Speaker 6: have been so many headfakes around government shutdowns, around debt
Speaker 6: ceiling fights, and so I think it's sort of understandable
Speaker 6: that the markets sort of a inre to even this discussion.
Speaker 6: But we do think the risk for a shutdown is
Speaker 6: higher this time around than it has been in probably
Speaker 6: several years, and that's because just the friction between the
Speaker 6: Republicans and the Democrats, the requirement. Remember that in order
Speaker 6: to fund the government, we need at least sixty votes
Speaker 6: in the Senate. That by definition will require some democratic
Speaker 6: cooperation in the Senate.
Speaker 1: You may even need.
Speaker 6: Democratic cooperation in the House as well, And just given
Speaker 6: that lack of comity, that friction maybe an understatement. I
Speaker 6: do think that the Democrats may very well be willing
Speaker 6: to take the political risk and shut down the government.
Speaker 6: Now what we've seen from an economic perspective, it doesn't
Speaker 6: really matter unless it is a prolonged shutdown. But again,
Speaker 6: I don't think the risk of that is necessarily zero
Speaker 6: just given some of these sort of political dynamics.
Speaker 2: The issue we've been talking about in the last twenty
Speaker 2: four hours is very much close to home for you.
Speaker 2: It's in the bomb market for the team over at PIMCO.
Speaker 2: What's been amazing for Lisa, me and others on this
Speaker 2: program is to see tariffs go from something that was
Speaker 2: bombed negative in April to bomb positive as we kick
Speaker 2: off September. How are you going to take thinking about
Speaker 2: that now?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Well, I think actually in all of these these things
Speaker 6: that we just were talking about too, I mean, from
Speaker 6: our perspective, really lead to what we've seen in the
Speaker 6: bomb market, which is a curve steepening kind of bias,
Speaker 6: and that is something that we've had, we've been positioned
Speaker 6: for that really since the beginning of this year. Clearly
Speaker 6: there might be even more room to run on this
Speaker 6: in terms of the concerns around FED independence, the concerns
Speaker 6: around inflation, the concerns about a government shutdown. We think
Speaker 6: that all reinforces lisa steepening bias. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 6: I think you know, you know, again, this is the
Speaker 6: kind of where we think, this is sort of our
Speaker 6: sweet spot in terms of being active managers being able
Speaker 6: to find some value in the bond market. But again,
Speaker 6: all of these things that we speak up in terms
Speaker 6: of Washington really do reinforce this idea of a bond steepening.
Speaker 2: How much revenue are they rising through terrists at the moment.
Speaker 1: Well, there, I mean a lot.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's you know, to date, it's around for
Speaker 6: fiscal years around one hundred and fifty billion dollars. So
Speaker 6: there is of course a question of whether the government
Speaker 6: would have to return that money. I think that is
Speaker 6: an open question, you know. Our view here is that
Speaker 6: this sort of this this legal process that you all
Speaker 6: have been talking about, will play itself out, will likely
Speaker 6: go to the Supreme Court if that is adjudicated on
Speaker 6: a sort of a normal timeframe. That means that we
Speaker 6: could we may not see a ruling until actually a
Speaker 6: June of twenty twenty six. So the up sort of
Speaker 6: the upshot for the market here is, even though there's
Speaker 6: a lot of noise back and forth around these tariffs,
Speaker 6: our expectation is that they stay on at least in
Speaker 6: some form or fashion for the first forestable future. And then,
Speaker 6: of course, as we've talked about John before, the President
Speaker 6: has a lot of other tools. So if the Supreme
Speaker 6: Court decides in an expedated fashion that he cannot do this,
Speaker 6: we think that he will put tariffs on using some
Speaker 6: of these other lovers that.
Speaker 1: He has stay with us.
Speaker 2: More Bloomberg surveillance coming up after this. Let's turn to
Speaker 2: the consumer. Kay McShane, a US retail analyst that Golment
Speaker 2: Sachs writing this, we have seen growing concerns around the
Speaker 2: health of the US consumer. However, we expect a combination
Speaker 2: of job growth, easing interest rates, and more benign essential
Speaker 2: spending to translate into resilient spending power. Kate joined us
Speaker 2: now for more. Kate, welcome to the program. Let's just
Speaker 2: build on your routelook. We've seen a market start to
Speaker 2: believe in a pickup in this economy. Are you hearing
Speaker 2: the same thing from the companies you follow?
Speaker 1: I think we are.
Speaker 7: I think there is some hesitation going into the back
Speaker 7: half of the year in terms of what with the
Speaker 7: higher prices we could see as a result of tyriffs
Speaker 7: could mean for the consumer.
Speaker 1: But as we enter into twenty twenty.
Speaker 7: Six, and we published on this yesterday, we do expect
Speaker 7: to see an accelerating cash flow for the consumer, especially
Speaker 7: with that middle income consumer.
Speaker 4: How much Kate has the expansion or the rosier outlooks
Speaker 4: from the retailers come from the idea of more robust
Speaker 4: demand from consumers, and how much has come from the
Speaker 4: fact that they can raise prices and cut staff or
Speaker 4: cut costs around the corners and maybe deploy a little AI,
Speaker 4: deploy a little something else.
Speaker 7: I do think there is a strong underlying demand that's
Speaker 7: underpinning the sales that we're hearing and seeing from retailers.
Speaker 7: What we've heard for the last couple of years is
Speaker 7: that while the consumer is being choiceful, they do respond
Speaker 7: to newness and to innovation. And we've heard so far
Speaker 7: that back to school has been very strong as well,
Speaker 7: and back to school is usually a very good future
Speaker 7: indicator for how holiday will turn out. And so I
Speaker 7: do think that there is a fairly healthy consumer that
Speaker 7: is underpinning the demand for these discretionary sales.
Speaker 4: How much Kate is this affected by some of the
Speaker 4: uncertainty that we've seen. There was this expectation that heading
Speaker 4: into the end of the year there would be more
Speaker 4: certainty around policy, more certainty about what was coming down
Speaker 4: the pike, and now we have the question about the
Speaker 4: legality of some of the tariffs. We have questions around
Speaker 4: what is going to happen with the budget deficit, a
Speaker 4: government shutdown? I mean, is that basically not on the
Speaker 4: minds of a lot of the executives that you're talking
Speaker 4: to there.
Speaker 7: Oh, I think the uncertainty is definitely something all of
Speaker 7: our companies that we cover have spoken to. I think
Speaker 7: there is a lot of uncertainty in terms of how
Speaker 7: things will play out again.
Speaker 1: In the back half of the year.
Speaker 7: I don't think we've seen as much fear from the consumer,
Speaker 7: though we haven't heard as much of pull forward in
Speaker 7: anticipation of potentially higher prices in the back half of
Speaker 7: the year. Everything seems somewhat normal when it comes to
Speaker 7: the consumer pattern of spending.
Speaker 4: Kay, I want to just ask, we've been talking all
Speaker 4: morning about the proliferation of artificial intelligence and how a
Speaker 4: number of different companies are using it and how it
Speaker 4: is migrating from the Magnificent seven to the rest of
Speaker 4: the names the index and beyond. Are you hearing about
Speaker 4: tangible ways that retailers are using the latest technology to
Speaker 4: either facilitate sales, reduce costs, or even just improve.
Speaker 1: Processes to do.
Speaker 7: Yes. I would say within the last couple of quarters,
Speaker 7: we have definitely seen the narrative around AI accelerate in
Speaker 7: terms of how these companies are thinking about the future.
Speaker 7: We do hear it in the context of efficiency, I
Speaker 7: think a little bit more than anything else. Think supply chain,
Speaker 7: think e commerce and product descriptions. There's a lot of
Speaker 7: things that they're talking about kind of early on here,
Speaker 7: but I think we're going to hear a lot more
Speaker 7: the next couple of quarters of again, how it's improving
Speaker 7: efficiency at all these companies.
Speaker 2: This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast, bringing you the best
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