Citrini Research’s Doomsday Scenario Forces Markets and Jobs to Reprice — What Comes Next

Why this matters now: a viral subscription-post by citrini research has pushed investors to re-evaluate the path from current AI advances to a possible economic downturn, not as a technical debate but as a financial stress test. The memo frames a chain that starts with a sudden jump in agent capability and ends in June 2028 with unemployment topping 10% and protest camps outside prominent AI labs — an outcome that has already moved markets this week.

Citrini Research’s scenario shifts the economic betting — immediate consequences and who is first in the crosshairs

Here’s the part that matters: the scenario reframes AI as an optimizer that removes the very "friction" long priced into services and white-collar work. That re-pricing, in the memo’s logic, first compresses software margins and corporate staffing, then feeds into private credit, mortgages and consumer spending. The model implies a negative feedback loop with no natural brake that forces firms — and investors — to change risk models, cost assumptions and hiring plans.

What the scenario outlines (embedded event details)

The post is presented as a scenario, not a prediction. It starts with a sudden "jump in capability" for autonomous AI agents, pointing to recently notable agent tools like Claude Code and Codex. Those agents are cast as cheaper in-house alternatives to software-as-a-service: they handle tasks such as managing databases and organizing workflows, pressuring firms that sell long-term contracts and recurring licenses into a race to the bottom on pricing.

Market moves and named companies that felt the shock

Markets moved alongside the viral post: the S&P dropped more than 1% on Monday, while the software component fell to its weakest level since the so-called "liberation day" tariff announcement in April. Shares in Uber, DoorDash, Mastercard and American Express all declined in the same period, each falling between 4% and 6% in the week the post circulated. An analyst at Saxo Capital Markets described the piece as extreme but a wake-up call for a changed economy.

The mechanism: ghost GDP, the death of friction, and the feedback loop

The scenario coins the phrase "ghost GDP" to describe AI-created output that inflates national accounts but does not generate real consumer spending because machines spend zero dollars on discretionary goods. The memo projects that as companies use AI to protect margins they will lay off white-collar workers, shrinking the consumer base and triggering further cost-cutting — a downward spiral toward higher unemployment and hollowed-out demand.

It also paints a market-structure change: agents could sideline intermediaries that monetize friction — travel and estate agencies, payment networks, and app-based platforms. The scenario imagines developers and civilians building bespoke delivery apps that fragment the market, erode margins for legacy players like ride-sharing apps, and shift transactions toward lower-cost methods such as cryptocurrency.

What’s easy to miss is that the memo is framed as a June 2028 postmortem: the narrative ends in June 2028 with unemployment cresting over 10% and a public protest movement setting up outside the offices of major AI labs, specifically OpenAI and Anthropic. That finish line makes the scenario a forward-looking stress-test rather than a near-term forecast.

Micro Q&A — short, practical clarifications

• Q: Who authored the analysis? A: The memo is from an analysis firm led by James Van Geelen, who is described as a former Los Angeles paramedic with degrees in biology and psychology.
• Q: Has the author signaled market confidence elsewhere? A: The author claims a personal investment portfolio surge of more than 200% since May 2023 and has been warning about a white-collar downturn for months.
• Q: Has this argument been aired publicly before? A: The author discussed a looming risk as a "sword of Damocles" on a podcast in April 2025; the scenario in question reads like a postmortem from June 2028.

If you’re wondering why this keeps coming up, note that the narrative links specific recent agent tools and named SaaS targets — Monday. com, Zapier and Asana — to a broader collapse of habitual app loyalty, which the memo argues machines simply do not have.

The real test will be observable signals: further pronounced weakness in software indexes, sustained declines in consumer-facing service revenue, and measurable layoffs in white-collar sectors would lend weight to the feedback-loop thesis; the absence of those trends would push the scenario back toward speculative caution. Recent market moves show the idea can influence prices even while its central claims remain unsettled.