Folks checking the economy’s temperature right now are finding a low-grade fever, with concern that symptoms may worsen.

To be clear, the signs aren’t all bad. For instance, inflation eased to 2.8% in February compared to 3% the previous month. But experts and consumers alike expect the economy will start sliding.

Consumers’ attitude toward the economy declined 10.5% between February and March, according to the University of Michigan’s index of consumer sentiment. The reading of 57.9 was the lowest it’s been since November 2022, according to CNBC. Joanne Hsu, director of the university’s consumer surveys, noted in the index update that “sentiment has now fallen for three consecutive months and is currently down 22% from December 2024.”

It’s not just consumers who are feeling queasy. In its latest economic outlook, the OECD now expects US economic growth to slow to 2.2% this year and 1.6% in 2026, down from its “fast pace of 2.8%” last year and from OECD’s December estimates by 0.2 and 0.5 percentage points, respectively. It also expects global GDP growth to edge down to 3.1% this year from 3.2% last year. OECD cited factors including “increased geopolitical and policy uncertainty” and “higher trade barriers.”

“Further fragmentation of the global economy is a key concern,” OECD noted in its report. “Higher and broader increases in trade barriers would hit growth around the world and add to inflation.”

For more on falling economic sentiment, click here.—AZ

KPMG is consolidating some of its global affiliates to reduce “the number of country units it operates globally,” per a Wall Street Journal report.

Quoting people familiar with the matter, the WSJ reported that the Big Four accounting firm aims to trim the number of country units to between 30 and 40 by the end of 2026. The move is intended to “retain workers and boost the quality of [KPMG’s] auditing services.”

When KPMG started the reduction effort in 2023, it had 120 units, the Journal reported. To date, KPMG has cut its country units down to around 75.

The reductions will mainly concern units making under $300 million in annual revenue, per WSJ.

Sources told the publication that smaller units “will particularly benefit from pooling their resources with other units in areas like technology or product investment for auditing, tax and consulting services.”

Last year, KPMG combined its UK and Swiss units. The Big Four firm has also merged some affiliates in the Middle East, per Bloomberg.

Click here to keep reading.—NP

Like the spaghetti dish you finally got around to making, AI chips might be better when they’re homemade.

Two anonymous sources told Reuters last week that Meta is testing out an in-house chip for training AI models—another investment from a company that’s betting we’ll all find a reason to use artificial intelligence.

“If you know that a workload is here to stay, then it really opens the door for incurring some of the large costs and some of the engineering efforts required to build a chip for that workload,” Benjamin Lee, professor in the department of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, told IT Brew.

Interest in GenAI from the enterprise market dipped in 2024, according to a recent Deloitte survey—in Q4, 59% of global C-suite and executive leaders and 46% of board members had high or very high interest in the technology. In Q1, those enthusiasm numbers were 74% and 62%, respectively.

“We don’t know what the killer app is for generative AI. We don’t know what will suddenly trigger broad, widespread adoption of this workload, but they want to be ready,” Lee said of Meta.

Click here to keep reading IT Brew’s story on Meta developing its own AI chip.—BH

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