We use generative AI to extract managerial expectations about their economic outlook from 120,000+ corporate conference call transcripts. The resulting AI Economy Score predicts GDP growth, production, and employment up to 10 quarters ahead, beyond existing measures like survey forecasts. Moreover, industry and firm-level measures provide valuable information about sector-specific and individual firm activities. A composite measure that integrates managerial expectations about firm, industry, and macroeconomic conditions further significantly improves the forecasting power and predictive horizon of national and sectoral growth. Our findings show managerial expectations offer unique insights into economic activity, with implications for both macroeconomic and microeconomic decision-making.

翻译：我们利用生成式人工智能从超过12万份企业电话会议记录中提取管理者对其经济前景的预期。由此构建的AI经济指数能够预测未来长达10个季度的GDP增长、生产与就业数据，其预测能力超越现有调查预测等指标。此外，行业与企业层面的测量指标为特定行业及个体企业的活动提供了有价值的信息。通过整合管理者对企业、行业及宏观经济状况的预期构建的综合指标，进一步显著提升了国家与行业增长预测的精度与预测时间跨度。我们的研究结果表明，管理者预期能够为经济活动提供独特的洞察，对宏观经济与微观经济决策均具有重要启示。