**The AI Megatrend Re-Accelerates**
A recent study by Mercor, an AI-powered hiring platform, revealed that while advanced AI models like Claude Opus 4.6, GPT-5.4, and Gemini 3.1 Pro achieve a 75% accuracy rate when processing clear text data, their performance drops significantly when interpreting data in charts and visuals, with frequent misreads and incorrect data extraction noted.
In financial news, the Bureau of Economic Analysis published the February Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, showing core PCE at 3.0% year-over-year and headline PCE at 2.8%, both in line with forecasts. However, Q4 GDP growth has been revised down to 0.5% from 1.4%. Moreover, consumer prices rose by 0.9% in March, influenced largely by an 11% surge in energy costs, pushing annual inflation to 3.3%, the highest in nearly two years.
