FRED, 845,000 US Economic Series - Your AI Can Pull Any of Them Directly. No MCP, No Plugin, No Install.
Published: July 8, 2026
FRED, the St. Louis Fed's free database, has ~845,000 economic time series.. inflation, jobs, GDP, rates, markets, all of it. And your AI can just reach in and pull any of them, directly. No MCP server, no plugin, no install. Free.
The reason it works is simple.. Claude Cowork, OpenAI Codex, Claude in Excel and PowerPoint.. each one has a Python sandbox sitting inside it. So for them, calling an API is just Python.
And an API is like plain English to them.. you just say "get me US gasoline prices from FRED, chart it, tell me what changed".. and it goes, connects to the API directly, pulls the data, analyses it, pushes into Excel or a slide or an HTML report.
Getting going is simple:
- Get a free FRED API key here: fredaccount.stlouisfed.org/apikeys. The rate limits are quite generous.
- First time, you may have to switch on outside access for the agent.. just one setting.
- Then just ask.
And FRED is only one example.. the same thing works for hundreds of other public APIs.
If you want to go deeper, two things I have put together:
- Claude Cowork guide, a deck on how I run the whole thing: tigzig.com/post/working-with-claude-cowork-claude-code-jun2026
- Claude for Analytics, my hub for all of this: tigzig.com/ai-in-excel
A few data APIs I keep using
Paste the list below into your AI agent (Claude Cowork, OpenAI Codex, Claude in Excel / PowerPoint etc.) and just say what you need.. or just have them explore it for you. They know what to do and where to go. All free. All rich data.
- FRED: 845,000 US economic series. Get a free key at fredaccount.stlouisfed.org/apikeys and give it to your AI.
- World Bank: global GDP, inflation, debt.
api.worldbank.org, no key. - US Treasury (FiscalData): federal debt, rates.
api.fiscaldata.treasury.gov, no key. - ECB reference FX:
api.frankfurter.dev, no key. - Yahoo Finance: prices and financials. Install
yfinancein the sandbox.
And a few of mine, all on api.tigzig.com, no key:
- Tremor: curated US + global macro, credit, valuation and market indicators.
- Mutual Fund NAV India (AMFI): 19.8M records, 17,000 schemes.
- Vigil: India corporate red flags.
- Portfolio Analysis, AI Technical Analysis, Securities Comparisons.
For you: tigzig.com → API / MCP
For your agent: Copy the page, or just ask it to hit api.tigzig.com.
Working on something similar? How I work covers the rates, the availability and what I take on.