Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Collins hears Rhode Island businesses and labor leaders on elevated uncertainty and AI adoption

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston published an account of President and CEO Susan M. Collins’s Rhode Island visit, where she met with major employers, labor leaders and local entrepreneurs to gather on-the-ground input on how elevated uncertainty is shaping economic decisions. Discussions focused on uncertainty linked to artificial intelligence, inflation and rising healthcare costs, and how firms are meeting demand with fewer workers and limited hiring. At FM’s research campus in Chepachet, Collins toured risk-mitigation demonstrations and joined a roundtable with large Rhode Island employers, including Brown University Health, which cited severe uncertainty over federal healthcare subsidies and warned some hospitals may not survive if support is reduced. Participants also highlighted both optimism about AI’s productivity potential and practical challenges in workplace adoption, with AAA Northeast pointing to the need for top-down cultural change. In Providence, a session with Rhode Island AFL-CIO union leaders and affiliated groups emphasized wage pressures relative to inflation and healthcare costs and discussed workforce initiatives, including a training partnership that helped resolve a public transit driver shortage. Collins also met entrepreneurs at the Hope & Main culinary incubator, which has supported more than 500 early-stage food businesses, where participants described resource constraints and the impact of broader economic uncertainty on micro-businesses.