‘Robot’ backs economic lift

THE UK economy will pick up pace in the second quarter but fall short of levels seen in the final three months of last year, according to PwC’s robo-economist.

The professional services firm’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform – or “nowcaster” – has predicted gross domestic product to hit 0.3 per cent between April and June.

That would be an improvement on the beginning of the year when GDP slumped to 0.2 per cent, down from 0.7per cent for the final three months of 2016.

John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC, said: “Our new nowcasting model has performed well in tests using data for the past four years.”