How AI agents could destroy the economy

On Sunday, an analyst group called Citrini Research published a fascinating article outlining how AI could wreak massive economic havoc over the next two years. The scenario imagines a report two years in the future, in which unemployment rates have doubled and the total value of the stock market has fallen by more than a third. As the report says:

AI capabilities improved, companies needed fewer workers, white-collar layoffs increased, displaced workers spent less, margin pressure pushed companies to invest more in AI, and AI capabilities improved…

It was a negative feedback loop with no natural brake… The system turned out to be a long series of interconnected bets on the growth of white-collar productivity.

It is a new kind of bearishness, focused not on Skynet-style disruption, but on the gradual dismantling of the economy itself. In particular, the Strini scenario looks at the implications of integrating AI agents into the economy as a whole, and what it will mean when external contractors are replaced by cheaper in-house AI. It’s similar to the death of SaaS scenario, but Citrini goes further, incorporating any business model that involves optimizing B2B transactions.

As you might expect, the report is causing quite a stir online. Not everyone believes it—Citrini even describes it as more of a scenario than a prediction—but it’s not easy to name the exact point where you think the scenario is going wrong.

Personally, I’m not sure companies are ready to hand purchasing decisions over to AI agents, no matter how smart they are. But in Citrini’s scenario, most of the decisions affected have already been handed over to outside contractors, so it’s not quite as implausible as it sounds.