Robot could predict the result of UK’s GDP

PWC IS on the cusp of launching a robo-economist that could make the company the “most accurate” economic forecaster on the market.

The professional services firm has developed a form of artificial intelligence (AI) with a 92 per cent strike rate when it comes to predicting the result of UK gross domestic product (GDP).

It discovered the AI’s “incredible accuracy” after testing to see if the machine could pinpoint historic GDP results without knowing the outcome. But while Jonathan Gillham, PwC’s director of economics, joked that the AI had already started to supersede his job, the firm said there were no plans to replace staff with automation and the programme would work alongside human economists. He said: “We have been using an AI technique to forecast the UK economy and we will be launching that in July.

“Each quarter, the Office for National Statistics publishes its estimate for GDP and we have been able to use an AI technology base to get that right 92 per cent of the time for the last five years.

“We pretended five years ago what we would have forecast if we didn’t know the number, and the machine learning process that we have developed has predicted it with incredible accuracy.

“Whether that will hold up in July when we launch it, who knows... but if it’s correct than it would make us the most accurate forecaster on the market.”

PwC said the programme still needed “input and judgement” from human economists.