AI Agents Account for About Half of Traffic to Federal Reserve Data Site

AI agents now account for about half of visits to FRED, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis' economic data platform, as it expands access to figures used to track the U.S. economy.

FRED traffic is growing about 150% annually, with AI systems and bots driving most of the increase. The platform has launched an MCP Connector, allowing users to search for and retrieve economic data through an AI agent of their choice.

FRED, short for Federal Reserve Economic Data, collects information on interest rates, inflation, employment and gross domestic product. Its team is developing skills to help AI agents use the data correctly and working on connections to historical data and archives.