Marketplace - Agentic AI anxiety

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Haven’t you always wished for robots to do menial labor? That’s sort of what agentic artificial intelligence is — rather than existing solely in a chat box, the technology can excecute complex tasks. These “helpers” have spurred a rat race in certain tech circles: With the help of personalized AI agents, just how productive can you be? Also in this episode: The U.S. dollar drags, budget airlines seek relief from high jet fuel prices, and consumers use credit to keep up with daily expenses.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

One of these days we will get through this show without using the word uncertainty. Today, however, is not that day. From American public media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizzdall. It is Tuesday, today the 21st of April. Good as always to have you along, everybody. The on again, off again, on off, on, on again, nature of President Trump's war against Iran. seems to be in an off phase.

Late this afternoon, after the market's closed, interestingly enough, the president announced on his social media feed that he is extending the ceasefire that had been scheduled to end tomorrow. There are some caveats and conditions, but the net effect does seem to be no more bombing for now. The market response tomorrow, TBD, if traders aren't numbed the whole thing already. But as you know, whenever there is as much uncertainty in the air, as there is now, investors pile money into the safest assets out there, among them, of course, the U.S. dollar, the value of which jumped when the war started and over the first month of it or so rose about 3 percent. Since, though, the greenback has given up nearly all of those gains.

Marketplace's Justin Ho has more on what's weighing on the dollar and what it might mean. The dollar's value rose early in the war, in large part because the conflict has had an outsized impact on the rest of the world. for the United States, it's just that it's worse for everybody else. Ken Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard, says other countries are much more affected by energy shortages from the Middle East. As a result, investors poured more money into U.S. assets. When money flows to the United States, it pushes the dollar up. When there seems to be peace again, some of the money reflows back in the other direction. Rogoff says that's partly why the dollar's

value started to fall after the ceasefire started a couple of weeks ago. But plenty of other things are dragging down the dollar's value, including the price of oil. 80% of oil transactions are conducted in U.S. dollars. That's Juan Perez, Director of Trading at Monax, USA. Oil prices surged at the outset of the conflict, but in recent weeks, they've fallen some. So naturally, with oil prices going down, the need for holding U.S. dollars, so that necessity has faded away. There's also the president's approach to global trade.

The dollar is perhaps a victim of the Trump administration's policies trying to extricate the U.S. from its role in the global economy. That's Christopher Vecchio, head of futures and FX at the research company Tasty Live. He says many investors have been shying away from the dollar because of how the Trump administration has treated its allies. Given how the Trump administration has conducted itself in the lead-up to this war, going after European allies for Greenland, how it's conducted itself during the war, chastising NATO. And Vecchio says even if the war in Iran were to end, those other concerns aren't going away.

I'm Justin Ho for Marketplace. Wall Street today down, though not a whole bunch. Tomorrow, as I said, anybody's guess. We will have the details when we do the numbers. Nice job, gang, and by gang, I mean, you, us, American consumers, war or no war we kept on spending last month. March retail sales up 1.7% from February, 4% from a year ago. Good? Yes.

Mostly? Also, yes, as Daniel Ackerman reports. There's one thing to keep in mind about the strong sales numbers in March, says Rick Miller of Big Chalk Analytics. Retail spending numbers are how much money consumers spent on stuff, not how much stuff they got. The more than 15% jump in spending at gas stations isn't because everyone splurged on a weekend road trip. Still, stripping out volatile spending on gas and car parts, retail sales still rose 0.6% from the month before. Jessica Ramirez of the Consumer Collective says some of that is thanks to big tax refunds, but people are also taking on more debt in order to keep spending.

We've seen Buy Now Pay Later increase. We've seen credit card debt increase. Taking on debt can mean consumers see better days ahead, but Matt Schultz, of Lending Tree, says there are some red flags. About 30% of Buy Now Pay Later users are using those loans for groceries. that certainly doesn't seem like a sign of the healthiest consumer. He says just two years ago, buy now, pay later was more often used on discretionary items, like handbags and gaming consoles. Perhaps the biggest reason people are still spending, though, is the labor market,

says Craig Rowley of Corn Ferry. Unemployment is still in the 4% category, which historically is not high. Riley says that's a number to watch if you want to know where consumer spending could go in the future. I'm Daniel Ackerman for Marketplace. Justin told us about the dollar. Dan told us about consumers. Now, an industry that ties both of those pieces of this economy together. Banks.

Lori Stewart is the CEO and president of Sound Community Bank in Seattle, Washington. Lori, welcome back to the program. Well, it's a pleasure and an honor to be with you. Honor is ours. How are things at Sound Community Bank? Here's the easy first question. Well, things at Sound Community Bank. bank are good. You know, in this world we live in that has an awful lot of uncertainty,

I would still say that our local bankers are doing well and we're collecting deposits and making loans and supporting our communities. Can one assume then that you're, if the banks are doing well, your clients are doing well? Well, I think that's true. But increasingly, clients are talking to me about concerns of sustained high gas and growth. prices. And the thing we've also noticed, Kai, is that commercial borrowers who have approved loans are kind of sitting on their hands as opposed to come into the closing table and using that hand to sign loan docs. I wouldn't call it a big trend, but definitely a trend the last couple of weeks. Again, that signals to me uncertainty. Yeah, keep going with that,

because it does seem to me that in the last couple of weeks, and, you know, we extrapolate that, to, you know, eight weeks or so. And uncertainty has magnified. Other than uncertainty, what do you make of it? Well, I don't think it's overt panic by any means. Please, not by any means. But I do think it's that kind of concern that says things are changing so fast. Should I just put this off for another week and see what happens?

And part of that's hope, too, right? Hope that a week from now, things will change. Yeah, yeah, no, I like the hope bit. That's good. Let me ask you to step out of your local community banking mindset and use your decades of experience in this industry at large. I want to ask you a couple of sort of very big picture things. Okay. Private credit and the challenges that we're seeing in that space. You worried about that?

I certainly have it on my list of things that merits watching. It's not keeping me up at night. It's very opaque, Kai. Yeah, yeah. It's really hard to understand what the ramifications could be. So it's on my list of things. I probably read something about it, if not every day, every other day, and try and learn more. Yeah, you and me both.

Speaking of learning more about something and also something being opaque, talk to me about what you're thinking about crypto and stable coins and that whole new regime of money that seems to be common. Well, let me talk about stable coins because that's on the mind of every community banker, if you'll indulge me for a minute. I think lots of us see business use cases for stable coin and an accelerated payment system. What's got us all anxious is that basically our business is not super complicated. We gather deposits and we lend them out. But if I can get some kind of reward that's like,

like getting the rate on my money market account, I might be insented to park those former bank deposits in Stablecoin. And if we don't have deposits, we're not going to make any loans. So I think it's a little bit of a complicated issue, but I think we can solve it if we continue working together. Stable Coen, I should have said, a form of crypto that's tied to the dollar supposed to be stable, unlike most of the rest of crypto. So that's what Laura is worried about. Exactly. I look back in our files. It looks like it's about a year since we talked to you last.

Yeah. If that schedule holds, it's not that we've been ignoring it, but there's been a lot of news. If that schedule holds, we're going to talk to you in March or April of 2027. What's the next year looking like for you and for your slice of this economy? Well, again, that's something, if you'd ask me that question in February compared to April, I would have had a much different answer. You know, the year got off to a night. start, but with the conditions we're seeing and the hesitation on the parts of businesses and consumers, I don't think it'll be a bumpy year, but there won't be as much growth as we

anticipated. Then again, this two may pass, and I might be saying something different. You're the expert. You're the expert. We're going to go with what you say. Lori Stewart, she's a CEO, also the president of Sound Community Bank up in Seattle. Lori, thanks a lot. Always good to talk to you. Thanks, Guy. There are, depending on the sources you use, something like 2,000 ships and as many as 20,000 civilian mariners on those ships stuck in the Persian Gulf. They need, in no particular order, if they are going to keep being stuck, food, fuel, and water.

If they're eventually going to get through the steroid of Hormuz, they are going to need it to open, yes, first of all, but they're also going to need insurance in the middle of a war. Marketplaces of Brie Banishore is on the things most of us didn't really think about until eight weeks ago to ask for us today. Ships can technically move without insurance. They just can't go anywhere. They will not be accepted at any port. Rahal Kapoor is vice president and global head of shipping and metals with S&P global energy. Bad things happen to ships, like this carnival cruise ship that hit another carnival cruise ship in Mexico six years ago. No major injuries there.

No port in its right mind would let a ship that doesn't have liability insurance pull up. But ships also need to insure themselves. What is called hull and machinery, so that covers damage to the vessel itself. These are the two core insurance which a ship needs. Small issue, none of them apply in a war. And this is typical of insurance policies, right? We cover a range of things except this, and war is excluded. Brandon Holmes is VP Senior Credit Officer at Moody's ratings.

So ships have to get war insurance. But one more small issue, the war insurance gets canceled if there's a war. Not immediately, but like pretty fast. 72 hours, 2 to 7 days. But we've heard of cases where it could be done sort of from 24 or 48 hours. So there's this organization in London called the Joint War Committee. It's a bunch of insurance companies. And they decide when an area or region is suddenly high risk.

And when they decide that, insurance companies can cancel and reprice their plans, and the clock on those policies starts to run out. The intent there is that if a ship is caught up in an unforeseen war, it gives them some time to remove themselves from the situation and get to safety before the insurance is canceled. This system lets insurers offer cheap war insurance in case a war breaks out. But then once a war zone is warzoning, they can create special expensive insured. insurance for if you want to go in there on purpose. Of course, in the Iran War, small issue, the ships can't just zip out of the way. They are literally stuck. So they need to get new, much more expensive war insurance. Dylan Saunders Mortimer is the UK war leader at Marsh Risk, an insurance broker and risk advisor. Rates were around about 0.25% of the value of a ship to transit

in and out of Hormuz prior to the events of the 28th of February. Since then, rates have increase to what we've observed as a limit of around about 10%. That is an increase of almost 4,000 percent. But that was a maximum, he says. Rates have come down recently to just 2 to 6 percent of the value of a ship, still high and a contributing factor to oil prices. But the rates for a trip through Hormuz can fluctuate on a case-by-case basis. Again, Brandon Holmes at Moody's.

The insurers basically told us that the ship would need to be sort of pointed at the strait with its engines on and ready to go, and then they'd give them a price then. And then once that price is given, they'd have 48 hours to complete the transit. Analysts say insurers are almost always willing to insure a tanker for the right price. But that is being tested right now for U.S. and Israeli flag ships that want to cross the strait. Dylan Saunders Mortimer with Marsh. Underwriters struggle to price risk where there is involvement from the United States or Israel on the basis that it almost removes the fortuity of the risk. As in Iran is almost definitely going to attack.

them outside of a ceasefire. The U.S. is creating guarantees to back up insurers who would insure such ships. analysts say it's still being worked out but should help. But Rahul Kapoor with S&P Global warns not to get too caught up by the insurance side of things. The state of almost is not seeing those transits because of insurance challenges. It's not seeing those transits because of the safety of the crew, safety of the cargo and the vessel. Insurance puts a price tag on risk. Insurance doesn't make that risk go away. In New York, I'm Subri Beneshore for Market. Coming up.

I feel like our whole company should just shut down and focus on this for about a month. I mean, that'd be a gutsy move. But first, sure, why not? Let's do the numbers. Now industrial's down 293. Today, 6 tenths of 1% closed at 49,149. The NASDAQ slipped to 144 points, 6 tenth percent. 24,259.

The S&P 500 down 45 points, also 6 tenths percent. 7,064. Maritime Insurance, you say, one of the biggest companies doing that Chubb Limited, ticker symbol CB, dipped 2 tenths percent. Other insurers for your big boats, American International Group, AIG. Maybe you heard of them. Flashback to the financial crisis? Anyone? Down eight tenths of one percent.

German a lians lifted up one and four tenths of one percent today. Bonds down, yield on the tenure T-note rose. 4.30%. You're listening to Marketplace. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Rizdahl. Here's a news item to set up another news item, which is going to set up a story about a sizable slice of a whole industry. Lufthansa, the German airline, said today it's going to cancel 20,000 flights between now and October.

Most of them short haul in Europe because jet fuel has gotten so expensive. That's item one. Item two is the low-cost American carriers, we're in Washington today meeting with Secretary of Transportation asking for help with. Can you guess? Marketplace to smearth the fields has that one. In the weeks after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, jet fuel prices almost doubled from about $250 a gallon to nearly $5. They've come down a little in the last couple of weeks, but are still high. This is like genuinely a big deal. David Slotnick at the points guy says it's an especially big deal for low-cost carriers.

These airlines typically are lower margin. They have a lot less wiggle room and fewer levers to pull. when their costs go up? Bigger airlines can more easily raise ticket prices to offset some of these higher jet fuel costs. In a way, Dan Aiken's at Flight Path Economics, says budget airlines can't. Simple because their passenger base is much more price sensitive. That's why this group of low-cost airlines is asking the government for help in the form of tax relief. But Aiken says that ask raises a fundamental question. If airlines are going to get relief, especially a category of airlines, why aren't all airlines getting

relief. And if airlines get relief, why not other industries? Trucking companies, taxi companies, Uber, they're all facing enormous increases in cost as well. So is there a call to subsidize all industries that are fuel sensitive? Or consumers? At the same time, Slotkin at the points guy says this is an existential threat for low-cost airlines. The argument they're trying to make to the government is that the price of fuel is on its way to putting them out of business, them continuing to exist is good for the American consumer and in the government's best interest. And that it's the government's war in Iran that has put them in this position. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace.

Artificial intelligence is moving fast. Every time you turn around, there is a new, new thing. And in the last six months in particular, there have been big jumps in what are called agentic capabilities for AI. Those are programs that take a large language model out of the chatbots that we're used to, or you just ask it things, and you set it loose to actually do stuff in the world, like book a flight or delete your junk mails. Coding agents like Anthropics's Clawed Code or OpenAIs codex, they focus on building software.

OpenClaw lets you run agents by messaging them from your phone. They can work autonomously 24-7 on whatever tasks you give them. Mildly terrifying? Yes. And also, caveat and btore. As with most of generative AI, the results can be unpredictable. But still, you would think having an army of AI minions might free up some time, make work more chill. As Marketplace's Megan McCarticorino reports in Silicon Valley, oh, you'd be thinking wrong. At a Menlo Park Starbucks down the road from all the big venture capital firms, John Wong hosts a meetup for the AI agent Curious.

Welcome, join us. Hello. Hey, grab a chair. Wong is a tech industry veteran who runs his own startup investment network. And he spent the last few months trying to automate as much busy work as he can. So I have right now eight bots running. So, for example, in the morning at 6 a.m., it goes to Reddit, looks at the top threads and the topics I'm interested in.

And I told it by 7 a.m. in my inbox, I want a report on the top news items I'm interested in. Wong used to pay for a human assistant in the Philippines. Now, he just pays for tokens. That's how AI usage is measured. I also asked it to write my resume for me today. I said, here's my LinkedIn profile. I need a professional-looking resume. A crowd of about a dozen showed up on this Wednesday night last month,

entrepreneurs, big tech workers, and hobbyist tinkerers. Kevin State runs sales strategy for an AI startup. I feel like our whole company should just shut down and focus on this for about a month. Right now, he's most important. using agents to organize his emails and write research reports. But he's working on building a custom networking assistant to track who he meets, map connections, and prompt him to follow up. If I adopt this now, I probably have a three to four month runway before everyone else catches up. And so I want to be ahead of the curve to be more efficient.

A sense that you're falling behind if you're not 10xing productivity, even while you sleep, has taken over the industry, says Nekunj Kote. a venture capital investor in San Francisco. Everybody has this feeling of like, hey, time is the only thing that matters. And in that given unit of time, which we don't get back, how can I have AI do a lot more for me than the next person? He calls it token anxiety, people keeping tabs on their agents, during parties, at bars, even while outside at the park. I would see, like, laptops slightly open and like the warm glow of the light. Katari himself is running agents for email, market research, data analysis.

His evening Netflix time has been replaced with Claude Code, dreaming up new tasks to automate just for fun. I have two young kids at home and I felt guilty because I'd be like, oh, go to bed quickly so I can get back to my computer. And it's not just scrappy founder types. Some of the biggest companies in tech are reportedly token maxing, pushing employees to burn through as many AI credits as possible in an effort to churn out new features and products at an ever faster pace. There is genuine excitement, but also fear, according to Eric Weber, who spent years leading data and AI teams, most recently at Gramerly. The changes happen so quickly that I think is disorienting for people because we're not

used to job families getting disrupted in two or three months. AI is automating the very skills that tech workers spent their entire careers developing. Weber says the industry is in a collective identity crisis. But I think what is causing a lot of stress for people is that doing more doesn't necessarily create more leverage or impact. You're just doing more stuff. And so we don't spend a lot of time on the question. Like what should you actually be doing? To answer that question, Weber decided he,

needed to do less. He still uses agents, but about a month ago, he stepped back from his full-time executive role to spend more time thinking, writing, and talking to people. I'm Megan McCarty Carino for Marketplace. This final note on the way out today, Kevin Warsh had his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Banking Committee today. There was the usual and expected raft of policy questions for President Trump's nominee to chair the Federal Reserve. Also a whole lot of questions about how Warsh is thinking about the independence of the central bank. On a very much related note, Warsh refused to answer a question about who won the 2020 election.

Jordan Manj, Zaniel Maharaj, Janet Wynn, Olga Oxman, and Virginia K. Smith are the digital team around here. I'm Kai Rizdal. We will see tomorrow, everybody. This is APM. Hey, David Brancaccio here. I hope you're well and that your passport is up to date because I am hosting a trip to Italy this fall, and you, you are invited. Stay at a world-class Tuscan villa and step into the world of the Medici, the formidable family whose influence and power help give rise to the Renaissance and the art we still celebrate today, and not to mention the banking system. We're going to visit the world's oldest bank, swim in the thermal spa waters in Monte Cattini, and take in the art of the Uffizi. All of this, and then we'll try to put it all into context.

with great conversation over even better meals and wine tasting. Please join me and know this. Buying into this trip will provide essential support for public media. Discover more about this fall's Tuscany Adventure at Marketplace.org slash travel to reserve your spot today. That's Marketplace.org slash travel.