The Fed, AI, and economic uncertainty: What investors need to know
The Fed, AI, and economic uncertainty: What investors need to know
Publish Date: 2026-03-31 11:35:00
Source Domain: mitsloan.mit.edu
Between them, Gary Gensler and Peter R. Fisher have worked in public service for decades, having collectively held senior roles at the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. They’ve also had private-sector stints at Goldman Sachs (Gensler) and BlackRock (Fisher).
Last month, the two policy experts joined forces at the 2026 MIT Sloan Investment Conference to discuss how investors can grapple with artificial intelligence investment risks, what a leadership change at the Federal Reserve Bank might bring, and the market effect of what Fisher called “Trumpian uncertainty.”
While their conversation happened before the war in the Middle East upended financial markets, there was still plenty of volatility on Wall Street, and there were mixed messages from Washington to decode.
Here are three questions tackled by Gensler, an MIT Sloan professor of the practice and former SEC chair, and Fisher, a distinguished senior fellow at the MIT Golub Center for Finance and Policy and former head of fixed-income portfolio management at BlackRock.
How should investors navigate the AI boom?
After cautioning the audience that he and Fisher were not dispensing investment advice, Gensler said he believes that every investor should have an AI thesis. “Right now, if you are investing in this market and you don’t have an AI thesis — what it’s going to do to productivity, what it’s going to do to labor, to market concentration, to software — you’re probably going to miss out,” he said.
Right now, if you are investing in this market and you don’t have an AI thesis, you’re probably going to miss out.
Gary Gensler
Professor of the Practice | MIT Sloan
Leaving unresolved the question of whether the current market is more of a boom or a bubble, Gensler expressed concern over…
