Waller, The Data Version of Godzilla versus Kong: FRED Takes on AI

Governor Waller's remarks at the St. Louis Fed's FRED Con 2026 are about data infrastructure, not monetary policy. The substance is FRED's AI-era plumbing: an MCP connector for AI agents, plans to route some Federal Reserve Board data publication to FRED, and a 150 percent annual surge in traffic that is now roughly half machine. There is no read on the policy rate, the balance of participants' views, or the near-term path for the funds rate, and nothing here to trade.

What’s new: Nothing material for rates. For data and market-structure watchers, the new items are the FRED MCP Connector (the "BYOAI" access route), the announced plan that users seeking certain Federal Reserve Board data "will soon be routed to FRED and its tools," and the disclosure that FRED traffic is growing 150 percent a year with about half of visits coming from AI agents. None of that is a policy signal.

KEY FINDINGS

• Waller announces that users seeking certain data published by the Federal Reserve Board will soon be routed to FRED and its tools. A consolidation of Fed data distribution, relevant to data vendors and anyone pricing information infrastructure, not to the front end.
• FRED traffic is growing 150 percent a year, with most of that growth from AI and bots, and about half of visits now come from AI agents. Confirms machine consumption of macro data is scaling fast, which matters for data licensing, scraping economics and the speed at which released data reach models.
• FRED has introduced the FRED MCP Connector, enabling AI agents to find and retrieve FRED data directly. Lowers the latency and friction of getting official data into automated workflows, eventually a market-microstructure consideration around data releases.
• Waller flags that FRED managers cannot tell whether AI agents are correctly attributing data to the original source or to FRED, though he says agents have been generally accurate on visualizations and explanations. Misattribution risk at the source is a governance issue for official data, not a rates input.

FROM THE DOCUMENT

In recognition of this preeminence, and FRED's success in presenting and combining data in engaging ways, I can announce today that users seeking certain data published by the Federal Reserve Board will soon be routed to FRED and its tools.

It is presently growing 150 percent a year, with most of that growth from AI and bots.

Already about half of visits to FRED are from AI agents retrieving data, with the other half from flesh-and-blood visitors.