Wall Street didn’t need a recession, a banking crisis or a geopolitical shock to tumble Monday. It needed a 7,000-word essay about artificial intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reports.

A viral “doomsday” report from boutique research firm Citrini Research rattled investors and helped fuel an 800-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as traders confronted a chilling question: What if AI isn’t just disruptive — but catastrophic for white-collar employment?

The Dow fell 1.7%, while the S&P 500 slid 1% and the Nasdaq dropped 1.1%, as software firms, private credit giants, and financial heavyweights were suddenly repriced for a world where knowledge workers — not factory laborers — are the next casualties of automation.

Citrini’s report, framed as a scenario set in June 2028 rather than a formal forecast, described what it called a coming “global intelligence crisis.”

Its core thesis was blunt: “For the entirety of modern economic history, human intelligence has been the scarce input….We are now experiencing the unwind of that premium.”

In other words, if AI makes intelligence abundant, the economic value of millions of white-collar workers could collapse.

The report argued that entire sectors — software, payments, private equity, insurance, wealth management — form “one long daisy chain of correlated bets on white-collar productivity growth.”

If AI tools begin replacing analysts, coders, compliance officers, paralegals, and even portfolio managers at scale, that chain could snap.

Datadog, CrowdStrike and Zscaler each plunged more than 9%. IBM cratered 13% — its worst single-day drop since 2000.

American Express, KKR and Blackstone — all cited in the report — tumbled sharply, as well.

Private credit firms, which have poured billions into tech companies betting on sustained white-collar expansion, were hit as well. Apollo Global Management fell 5%, and Blue Owl slid more than 3%.

DoorDash dropped 6.6% after Citrini labeled it a “poster child” for disruption, arguing that AI agents could strip away the “interpersonal friction” that platforms monetize.

Even the company’s co-founder acknowledged the ground was shifting, writing that the industry would need to adapt to the rise of “agentic commerce.”

The most unnerving part of the report wasn’t that AI would cut costs. It was that it could cut people — quickly.

“The key risk is speed of disruption rather than its existence,” UBS analysts warned separately, noting that a rapid shock within 12 months could overwhelm contractual protections.

That fear of speed is what makes the scenario so destabilizing. If AI adoption unfolds gradually, companies and labor markets can adjust. If it accelerates — as many believe it will — the economic system may not have time to adapt.

The broader market was already uneasy.

Investors have grown wary of how much of the rally in recent years has depended on AI optimism. Valuations across software and tech have baked in expectations of endless productivity gains.

Citrini’s question flips that narrative on its head: What if AI’s productivity boom destroys the income base that sustains those valuations?

“What if AI is so bullish for the economy that it is actually bearish?” the report asked.

Monday’s selloff also coincided with renewed trade-policy uncertainty after President Trump said he would raise a new global tariff to 15%, replacing import taxes struck down by the Supreme Court.

Investors rotated into traditional safe havens. The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 4.026%, its lowest close since late November. Gold surged 2.9%, and silver jumped more than 5%.

Defensive sectors such as energy and consumer staples outperformed, though they carry less weight in major indexes.

Some strategists urged calm. “We advise investors not to overreact to headlines,” said Edward Jones strategist Angelo Kourkafas.

Others described markets as “trigger-happy,” noting that previous AI-related panics had reversed quickly.

But the February 23 rout underscored something deeper: Wall Street is no longer debating whether AI will reshape the economy. It is debating how painful that reshaping could be — and who loses first.