Weekly Economic Update 01-16-26: Artificial Intelligence; Existing Home Sales; Small Business Optimism; Retail Sales; and the Consumer Price Index

Capping credit card interest rates is a very bad idea.

The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Georgia Institute of Technology or the Georgia Board of Regents.

I have been frantically putting together my annual economic outlook presentation, given that next week I will start my annual speaking tour around the Atlanta metro area at various chamber events. The title this year is Obstacles and Opportunities for the Economy in 2026.

Since many of you aren’t in the Atlanta metro area, over the next few weeks, I will be laying out each of the obstacles and opportunities, starting today with what is no doubt the largest “opportunity” for the economy in 2026…Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The topic of AI came up briefly last week and prompted some discussion in the comments. The Penn Wharton School published an interesting report on the impact that generative AI would have on future productivity growth. As part of that research, they examined occupations and their exposure to AI automation. According to their analysis, about 58% of occupations have less than 50% of their tasks that can be performed by AI. The remaining 42% they classify as “exposed to generative AI” as more than 50% of their tasks can be performed by AI.