Rate decision. Apple also in focus as wall street reacts to its launch event, including a new iphone lineup. Meantime, china insists it has not issued a ban on the companys flagship product. Were going to get into all things a. I. With tech ceos meeting with lawmakers on capitol hill to what Salesforces Marc Benioff told jim about that technology. Lets begin with cpi. Obviously, core, bit of a disappointment to the bulls, jim. Gasoline is more than half of the headline, up 10. Car insurance, up 2. 5, but lodging away from home down 3. I was listening to Steve Liesman break it down, and i agree with what steve was saying, its just empirical. Theres nothing that says that gas and oil and have necessarily trickled into the rest of the combination. We do know ive been talking with major insurers who are using, believe it or not, Artificial Intelligence to actually get prices to where they are lower, and i wonder whether that wont filter in as part of a larger conversation about trying to get the best price for the consumer when it comes to these gigantic Car Insurance and auto finance companies. I suspect those numbers are going to go down because of Artificial Intelligence. Thats not that may not be two years out. That might be next year. Im more sanguine on that. What im less sanguine about is weve got to see numbers from companies go up about a. I. , and we havent seen that other than nvidia, and david, when we talk about a. I. , you know the stocks have all been up as if the numbers are going to be great. The pressure on adobe tomorrow is so gigantic. Someones got to be able to raise numbers on a. I. Besides nvidia. Cant just be nvidia. But isnt it maybe its a bit too early to do that . Isnt it we talk about the products that are really going to come from generative a. I. And the revenues and or the productivity, it just may be a while, jim. Not for banks. Because they have well, we called goldman. They had deadwood. You spoke with david solomon. He was more diplomatic through that. Some firms will start trimming immediately. But theyll do it through attrition. They wont fire. They just wont hire people. In terms of making numbers move up, what i think is most daunting is what happened with oracle. And i wanted to buy oracles got oracle world next week. I think theyre going to lay out a pretty good a. I. Strategy, but they didnt raise, and unless you raise, like nvidia, then its disappointment, and david, that means theres a lot of disappointment ahead. It worries me, particularly in light of what we know about arm holdings and how that stock is going to come in way too hot now. You think its going to come in way too hot . I was hoping for 50 billion. Im hearing 60 billion. I cant get that. I dont know if theyre going to get to that. Really . These anchor tenants. The anchor tenants are strategic. They dont care about valuation, right . Theyre bidding the thing up. David, it cant go north of 50 billion and make sense. Well, listen, they wouldnt be unhappy with that at softbank, for certain, if you got above 60. I mean, he bought back stock at 64 billion, which is roughly twice what they paid for the company quite some time back. True, but coming back to this thesis on a. I. , i mean, nvidias benefitting, of course, because theyre selling all the chips that are helping all these companies create the products for the future, but isnt it a little early, again, to expect those very products to be actually producing revenue or increasing productivity . Its going to take a while. So, arm is a beneficiary of the chip sales that are obviously behind all the new iterations of generative a. I. Or all the new products that are conceivably coming, lets call it a year or two years from now. Okay, so, heres the difficulty with that. Marc benioff, who obviously is a great proselytizer for this, is telling me its going to show up this year, that its that powerful and with the big banks, you will see already their Gross Margins increasing. Carl, it is so prosaic whats really going to do well. It is an Auto Insurance company. It is a Property Casualty insurer. It is a moneycentered bank. They are the guys who are going to put this to work immediately and save money, and those are the winners so far. Im sitting down with laura albert from Williams Sonoma. I saw her last night at a dinner. She can tell you, chapter and verse, how much its helping already. But i think its companies that are very tech savvy or companies that have giant overhead, huge costs up front where people just do the same thing over and over and over again. Carl, those people, when they leave, or if theyre terminated, will not be replaced, and that means Gross Margins going up for as early as q1 of 2024. I guess nearer term, jim, were left with whats happened with prices on the shelf today. Doug mcmillon did talk about this yesterday at the conference, said, were going to see deflation but were not going to get all the way back to deflation and erase some of the price hikes that have happened over the last two years. In the u. S. , things are better than i would have expected them to be when we started the year. I think the employment situation, wage increases, some pockets of disinflation are helping that. I think were in a pretty good spot and customers are going to feel some relief as it relates to pricing. The more disinflation happens and categories like grocery and consumables, the more Discretionary Income they have to buy merchandise, but the spin level hangs into where it is, i would expect the behavior to be about what it is now. And i think holiday is going to be pretty good. I dont go into next year feeling too pessimistic. His comments, jim, about holiday are interesting because this Deloitte Survey or study says were hlooking at holiday growth as the lowest in about five years. Im not so sure about that. I think that a lot of the employment numbers are still very, very strong and that should not lead to that kind of deceleration. It is hit or miss. I think one of the things thats happened coming out of pandemic, walmart is now a loved company to shop at, and i know that when i walk the stores, i think sometimes david and i joke about this, but when you walk the stores, they dont look like walmart. They look like target. Its like they figured out what target looks like. At the same time, the numbers from costco are extraordinary. Carl, i think that youve learned we learned amazon, costco, walmart offer the best bargains, and those are winner take all, and it does almost feel like loser take none. Well see. I mean, he did have this report out of goldman yesterday, jim, looking at q4 potholes. The resumption of student loan payments, Government Shutdown more likely than not. Were going to talk about the uaw strike. Their number for q4 is 1. 3 as opposed to 3. 1 in q3. Thats a deceleration, but remember, if youre the fed, youre looking youre listening to what we just said over the last four minutes. Its good, but cpi, not perfect, but walmart, 200 Million People go there each week. Thats a pretty positive sign. I mean, david, anecdotally, there are enough signs of prices coming down that if we could just get housing to break, in other words, housing is up 40 . Thats the big outlier. If we can get housing to break, which we will know with lennar tomorrow. Giant home builder that tells you exactly a forecast that you have to listen to. We need housing coming down. We need a. I. To come into play to lower prices. Its not even goldilocks. You can just say its f phantasmagorical, but it could happen. Wouldnt you need housing to decline overall so you have a more robust market overall for homes . People like my wife who sell real estate, theres a moment in time where what happens is the rates go so high, and the Home Builders dont seem to realize, and they keep pumping and pumping, and then theres that moment where the buyers step away, and then the Home Builders break price and thats what powell is hoping for, he may get it, david, because we are we havent seen numbers for applications since 1996 this bad. I dont think the Home Builders understood that it could be this bad this fast. Lennar will tell us whether theyre beginning to overbuild. The homebuilding stocks are saying the Home Builders are overbuilding. Thats how you get the price break is a buyer strike. Thats what im counting on to get housing not back to it was up 40 from 2019, youre not getting that back to where it was, but if it could just turn to being, say, down, well back a quarter of that, then the fed is golden. Thats what we want. We want the pressure off the fed. Theres also this interesting survey out of red fin this morning, guys. One in ten sellers are listing because they have been called back to the office. Whoa. Oh, man. I had lyft on last night. He said their business, up 18 , why . Because the commuter is back. Now, david, youve been commuting for years, so it really hasnt directly impacted you, but do you see more people on the subway . A few. Yesterday was very crowded. Yes, i have noted the middle of the week, in particular, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, tends to be busier. And has become even busier postlabor day. I think that is notable. That said, guiys, friday is just thats over. Nobody. Were it. Were it. Us and maybe those few guys at goldmansachs. Im taking a friday morning. And those people. Whats it like . Whats what like . When you take off friday, whats that like . What do you do . I dont know. What do you do . You wouldnt know. Are you going to take the redeye back tomorrow and come to work the next morning . Did they cancel it . Did they cancel my redeye . I dont know. I wore my suit thats kind of a its kind of a pajama suit. It is . Its a brioni 180 pajama suit. It guarantees good sleeping. It doesnt wrinkle. It has feet. Feet pajama suit from brioni. Jim tends not to take travel days on the way back. No, he doesnt. I dont care for them. Unlike some people i know. I took one on friday for the first time. That was brutal. We didnt get in until 3 00 in the morning. I cant do what you do. David was on assignment. 3 00 in the morning, thats good, man. If i can get that, thats good. I go right to the office. Speaking of activity out west, lets get to apple, unveiling its latest products, including the iphone 15, the series 9 apple watch at yesterdays event. All of them coming with this usbc charging port. Some price trimming, discussion about whether these price hikes at the high end are trying to mask the obvious continued revenue declines. Well, look. Theres a reason why we never buy ahead of an apple launch. The nitpickers are first. Theyre the ones that immediately come on and tell you, look, its nothing incremental. Its not a big price increase. Of course, we need to see what verizon and at t are going to pay. But what i thought was interesting was the sum total of things theyre giving you for the watch, for the cord, for the phone in terms of the camera where you can get rid of blur, these are things that dont show up in the numbers instantly, and yet, they become why you buy. And i think that the first people out of the block are the people who say, nothing new. And then when you start using it, you say, wow, i now have a tw device that tells me hotter, hotter, hotter, bingo for where my phone is. Im not going to use my watch as a clock anymore. Im just going to use it to find my phone. This is the solution. Thats why im going to upgrade to the new watch . Its a find my phone that also tells time. Thats what it is. Its changed. Theres a lot of other things, jim. Nobody spent more time talking about the Health Benefits of having that watch than you. Well, a lot of times, im yelling on mad money, and it tells me i got to be careful because its a dangerous sound environment. I dont know. Youve got the vision pro still on practice, jim, for next year. Thats so great. See this . Talk to my little friend. This is whats going everybodys going to be doing senor wences from ed sullivan. Well all be doing it. Right now, im the only one doing it. Next year at this time, all of us will be doing it and say, oh, hes doing that thing. Cramer was first, like with nvidia. Remember when he named his dog nvidia . Hes doing this now. David, theres a use case for a. I. Did you know that . Its going to wipe out humanity. By the way, that hasnt gone away as a concern. Carl, you and i will still be here. Hell be on assignment. Its an absolute possibility. When you get to musk shared it . General intelligence, oh yeah. Im driving in a driverless car today. Its soon, a cruise, and you know what . Cruise one, musk none. Interesting. Im looking forward to that video, jim in the backseat. Speaking of which, were on watch for arrivals at this a. I. Closed door forum on the hill today where zuckerberg, musk, gates and other tech giants are going to attend senator schumers gathering. Thats kicking off at the top of the hour. Well take you live to d. C. Take a look at the premarket here. Can stocks look past cpi this morning . Futures have been waffling back and forth. Well get to two more airlines warning today, the uaw, some news on citi when we come back. You know doug, ever since switching to workday youve been a real rock star. Rock star . What do you know about rock stars . Billy idol . I mean wheres the skintight leather . My shoes are leather. Wheres the unnecessary zippers . That thing billy, rock star is just how doug feels when he uses workday. Thanks, rory. Ill show you rock star be a finance and hr rock star. Workday. For a changing world. Billy idol just stole your golf cart you cant buy great conversations or moments that matter, but you can invest in them. At t. Rowe price our strategic investing approach can help you build the future you imagine. T. Rowe price, invest with confidence. The power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. And thats a good thing . Great in my book who are you . No power . No problem. Introducing stormready wifi. Now you can stay reliably connected through Power Outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery backup to keep you online. Only from xfinity. Home of the xfinity 10g network. Congress holding this a. I. Forum today to explore potential regulations with elon musk, Mark Zuckerberg, bill gates among the confirmed guests. This as salesforce chief marc benioff sat down with jim last night and touted the power of a. I. Why do i want salesforces i einstein to be my copilot . This is probably the greatest Technology Advancement of our lifetime or any lifetime. Of any lifetime. Were going to talk with jim about that in a moment, but first, our Emily Wilkins is down in d. C. With the latest. Morning, emily. Good morning, carl. Well, a. I. Is really getting the red carpet treatment on capitol hill today. You know, capitol hill, home to a lot of meetings, a lot of issues. This is really unique. In less than an hour, at 10 00, right behind me here in the kennedy caucus room, all 100 senators have been invited to meet with elon musk, Mark Zuckerberg, bill gates, a lot of leaders on tech and a. I. As well as leaders from civil rights groups, from unions to really start or rather continue a conversation about a. I. And what congresss role needs to be. Now, this isnt the first hearing. It probably is the most blockbuster hearing with the biggest names, but majority leader Chuck Schumer has said that this is really about educating members. I know a lot of people dont think of senators as the most tech savvy. Senator schumers known for having his little flip phone, but he really wants to make sure that senators are comfortable with their knowledge of a. I. The actual legislation process is already under way in a number of different committees. Yesterday, senator richard blumenthal, senator josh hawley, held a bipartisan hearing on their a. I. Framework that would require certain highrisk a. I. Models to be licensed and to be overseen by an independent agency. Josh hawley told me yesterday that there need to be some bright lines for these a. I. Companies. We cant just allow industry to do what they want to do because theyll maximize their profits. B, i think we need brightline standards that protect kids, that protect workers to make sure this Technology Actually enhances their wages, doesnt destroy it, protects creativity and peoples privacy rights, so i think weve got a long way to go, but were learning a lot. Theres still debates on the details of what a. I. Legislation needs to look like, whether it needs to be one agency, multiple agency, whether open source a. I. Should be encouraged or discouraged. Expect a lot of that to be discussed today in the room behind me. The first threehour session starts in a few minutes. Carl . Emily, thanks. Lets talk about this for a moment with jim. Jim, is this really constructive . Or is this theater . No, i dont think its theater, because these chieftains of tech have not gotten together, and they dont really know. I know that i regard jensen huang as the most important person there, and he is the ceo of nvidia, and he is so proguardrail, and he talked about that before he talks about anything else, but there are others who dont talk about that first, others who are talking about profit. Sam altman, a bit of a wild card, at all times. This group is filled with wild cards. David, you know these guys are not all in one. Altman is proguardrails as well. What im saying is that these guys when i hear the idea that theyre only out for profit, david, do you hear anyone whos just saying that . No. I agree with you, jim. Theyre worried. This is important. This is important. You can imagine what if, knowing what we know now, wed had a forum like this involving social media . Where would we be . What would have happened . What regulations would have been put in place . I think its a good thing. Obviously, the chinese and the russians are not invited to this forum, so my point being, we can do everything we want in terms of putting up guardrails. Nothing says that our enemies or potential enemies arent doing the same. Axis of evil. Look. Today, venezuela, moduro met yesterday with xi. Ronald reagan would say theres an axis of evil going on here. If were going to sit here and think were going to play with one arm tied behind our back and those guys are militarizing instantly . I dont know. I think our guys are trying to be con