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Federal Reserve to hold AI hearing in San Francisco on November 16
The Board of Governors and the San Francisco Fed are bringing their growing AI focus to the heart of the tech industry
The Federal Reserve plans to hold an AI hearing in the San Francisco Bay Area on November 16, 2026.
The event involves the Fed’s Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
What the Fed is planning
The hearing is set for November 16 in the Bay Area. As of mid-October, the Fed had not laid out a public format, agenda or list of participants.
Fed officials have stepped up their AI commentary considerably. Their focus has centered on three areas: productivity, inflation and labor markets.
Mary Daly’s supply shock warning
The clearest preview of the Fed’s thinking came from San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly. On October 6, 2026, she argued that AI-driven demand could stretch out supply shocks tied to key resources like chips and energy.
Daly suggested that AI demand could extend beyond a typical one-to-three-year supply shock, with pressure on chips and energy potentially lasting longer as demand keeps climbing.
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That matters for inflation. Policymakers often treat supply shocks as temporary, something to look past rather than fight aggressively. If AI turns a short squeeze into a longer one, that framework gets harder to apply.
A board-wide conversation
Daly is not working the topic alone. Fed Governors including Lisa Cook, Christopher Waller, Michael Barr and Philip Jefferson have delivered multiple AI-focused speeches across 2025 and 2026.
Many of those remarks were given in the Bay Area or referenced it directly. The topics ranged widely: productivity gains, inflation dynamics, financial stability risks and the Fed’s own internal use of AI tools.
The San Francisco Fed maintains the EmergingTech Economic Research Network, known as EERN, which studies how emerging technologies such as AI affect the economy.
The regional bank has hosted or co-hosted AI-related events before. The November hearing appears to extend that work to a more prominent stage with Board-level involvement.