JPMorgan Chase plans to deploy artificial intelligence agents later this year that can work autonomously for far longer than existing versions, marking another milestone in the corporate adoption of AI, CNBC has learned exclusively.

AI agents are evolving from tools that complete single tasks to digital workers that manage workflows across multiple steps and disparate software programs, Derek Waldron, JPMorgan chief analytics officer, told CNBC in an interview.

“We’ve entered now the era of long-running autonomous agents,” Waldron said. That “means that agents don’t just run for two or three minutes to carry out a goal or some instructions of a human, they can run for an hour or two.”

Long-running agents have already emerged over the past year as examples including Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenClaw went viral. JPMorgan’s planned deployment, however, suggests the technology is close to clearing the security and governance hurdles that have slowed adoption inside large companies.

JPMorgan, run by CEO Jamie Dimon since 2006, is the biggest U.S. bank by assets and has a nearly $20 billion annual technology budget.

While much of the conversation around generative AI has focused on model intelligence, tech leaders are increasingly focused on a different question, said Waldron: How long can AI systems operate effectively before requiring human intervention?

That concept, which Waldron called “intellectual coherence,” has been helped by improvements in how AI models reason, enabling them to be more of a “team manager than an individual worker,” he said.

“Just like how people function, team managers can parse out a problem and delegate activities, and teams can run for a lot longer to do more complex things,” Waldron said.

Other recent advances that have helped agents do more complex jobs include the ability to write code, control web browsers and interact directly with desktop software, he said.

While long-running agents aren’t yet ready for corporate use because of security concerns, their arrival isn’t far off, Waldron said: “We will have those in 2026.”

Eventually, AI agents will remain coherent for “multiple hours, then days, then weeks,” he said.

Prices in April rose at their fastest pace since May 2023. Traders on prediction market platforms think the peak in inflation isn’t here yet.

While the headline annual inflation rate rose 3.8% last month, traders on Kalshi think it is near certain that price increases will rise above 4% in 2026, and give almost two-in-three odds that it goes above 4.5%.

Traders also see an almost 40% chance that inflation will cross 5% this year. That hasn’t happened since February 2023. 

That’s significantly higher than Wall Street projections. Economists polled by FactSet forecast that inflation will peak at an average of 3.8% in the current quarter and fall to 2.8% by the end of the year.

Households, though, are more in line with the prediction market forecast. A University of Michigan survey released Friday found that consumers expect inflation of 4.5% over the next year. On Polymarket, traders believe there is a 50% chance that U.S. inflation rises above 4.5% in 2026. 

Headline inflation jumped last month as energy prices soared due to the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But core inflation, which measures the change in prices excluding food and energy, also rose 0.4% in April and 2.8% year over year.

Food, materials, shelter, lodging

“The first order effect from the conflict in the Middle East [has] been a shock to oil prices, which [has] translated very quickly to what consumers are paying at the pump, but the next frontier to watch is rising input prices for food and materials,” said Skyler Weinand, chief investment officer at Regan Capital.

While the U.S.-Iran conflict drove energy prices higher, not all of the inflation story can be explained easily by the war. Notably, shelter prices rose 0.6% in April.

Traveling got more expensive, too. Airfares jumped 2.8% in the month — as airlines passed through to consumers rising jet fuel prices — and lodging away from home rose 2.4%. Apparel was up 0.6%, although that is a smaller increase than in March. 

But the energy shock is what’s driving headline inflation. So long as the strait, a passageway for 20% of the world’s crude oil before the war, remains closed, consumers are unlikely to see immediate relief. U.S. oil prices again crossed $100 a barrel on Tuesday. 

A majority of Kalshi traders don’t think maritime traffic through the strait will return to normal until October.

The longer the strait is closed, the greater the risk to prices. Perhaps as a consequence, Kalshi traders now give a more than 50% chance that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by July 2027. 

“In the first quarter of disruption, the oil supply shock is largely about higher prices,” wrote Seth Carpenter, chief global economist at Morgan Stanley, in a note on Monday. “A second quarter of disruption with continued price escalation would start to diminish the ‘transitory’ nature of the shock … and central banks would have to pivot from delays to policy stance changes.”

— CNBC’s Liz Napolitano contributed reporting

Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.

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Alphabet briefly passed Nvidia by market cap in after-hours trading this week, a remarkable feat for a company that was seen as deeply at risk in the early days of the artificial intelligence boom.

The stock is up about 160% in the past year, driven higher by an emerging view on Wall Street that Google is well positioned across the AI landscape, whether it’s from the company’s homegrown models, its massive distribution network or its cloud unit that’s reeling in cash from other booming AI businesses.

Among tech’s seven other trillion-dollar companies in the U.S., chip designer Broadcom is the next best performer over the past 12 months, with its stock up 107%.

“Google is one of the two best-positioned AI companies because they own most of the stack,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management. “Chips, models, infrastructure and distribution. On top of that, they’re nicely profitable.”

The other company he put in that category is Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which merged with xAI in February in a deal valued at $1.75 trillion.

Following Alphabet’s earnings report last week, JPMorgan analysts called the stock their “top overall pick” in the tech sector, pointing to a “standout quarter,” accelerating growth and a cloud backlog that nearly doubled to $462 billion. Mizuho analysts raised their price target, writing that consensus estimates still significantly underestimate Google Cloud revenue and operating income over the next two years.

Alphabet closed the week with a market cap of $4.8 trillion, behind only Nvidia at $5.2 trillion. The two flip-flopped momentarily after markets closed on Tuesday following a report that AI model developer Anthropic committed to spend $200 billion on Google Cloud over five years for 5 gigawatts of compute.

For investors, it was the latest sign that Google has many ways to make money and compete at the cutting edge. There’s Gemini and DeepMind for AI models and research, Google Cloud for compute, tensor processing units (TPUs) as an alternative to Nvidia, and the ability to add AI features into search, YouTube and Android.

There are reasons to be skeptical, however, in the eyes of some analysts.

A primary area of concern is how much of the backlog could be coming from Anthropic, a cash-burning and richly valued startup that’s raising tens of billions of dollars from Google and, in turn, is spending much of that money with Google on cloud services and TPUs.

If the reported $200 billion Anthropic commitment is measured against Alphabet’s reported cloud backlog, it could represent more than 40% of future contracted revenue.

Nike announced a new round of layoffs on Thursday impacting approximately 1,400 roles across the organization, mostly concentrated in its technology department.

In a note from COO Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the company said the layoffs were part of Nike’s broader “Win Now” turnaround strategy aiming to reshape its technology team, modernize its air manufacturing, move some of its Converse Footwear operations and integrate its materials supply chain work into its footwear and apparel supply chain teams.

“Collectively, these changes will result in a reduction of approximately 1,400 roles in global operations, with the majority in technology,” Alagirisamy wrote. “These reductions are very hard for the teammates directly affected and for the teams around them, too.”

A Nike spokesperson said the layoffs are about better positioning the organization for the current pace of sports and accelerating its growth. The layoffs affect employees across North America, Asia and Europe and represent less than 2% of the company’s total global headcount.

“This is not a new direction,” Alagirisamy wrote. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”

Impacted employees will be notified beginning Thursday, Nike added.

CEO Elliott Hill has been working to turn around Nike after years of slumping sales. While Hill has made some initial progress, it’s come with some bumps in the road.

Nike previously announced 775 job cuts in January, primarily at its U.S.-based distribution centers, due to the company’s work in accelerating its use of automation. At the time, the company said the cuts are part of Nike’s goal to return to “long-term, profitable growth.”

Those layoffs came on top of a round of cuts last summer that affected less than 1% of Nike’s corporate staff as part of the company’s efforts to realign the business.

In its third fiscal quarter earnings report last month, the retailer warned that sales will continue to fall for the rest of the year, primarily led by an anticipated 20% decline in China during the current quarter.

— CNBC’s Jessica Golden contributed to this report.