Citadel Securities released a macro strategy note on Wednesday that contradicts a widely circulated blog post asserting that artificial intelligence will cause broad white-collar job displacement. The research note highlights a set of labor and capital data that, according to the firm, points to a measured adoption of AI tools and continued strength in tech labor demand.
Market reaction to the original blog post was swift: stocks slid sharply on Monday and the already-weak software sector suffered further losses, with the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (NYSE:IGV) dropping 4.8%.
In its analysis, Citadel Securities points to multiple data points to support a counter-narrative. The firm notes that the unemployment rate printed at 4.28% in 2026. It also highlights substantial AI-related capital spending, estimating AI capital expenditure at 2% of GDP, equal to $650 billion. On the infrastructure side, roughly 2,800 data centers are planned for construction in the United States, according to figures included in the note.
Citadel's macro strategist Frank Flight drew attention to labor market metrics showing continued demand for software talent. Citing Indeed data, Flight observed that job postings for software engineers rose 11% year-over-year, a statistic the firm uses to argue that demand for technical workers has not evaporated amid AI deployment.
Turning to adoption patterns, the note references the St. Louis Fed's Real Time Population Survey to argue that day-to-day use of AI for work remains stable, without evidence of accelerating uptake. Citadel Securities frames AI adoption as following a historical S-curve pattern, comparing it to the adoption trajectories of personal computers and the internet rather than an immediate exponential surge.
Interpreting AI-driven automation through a macroeconomic lens, the firm characterizes it as a productivity shock that functions like a positive supply shock. Citadel Securities says such shocks tend to lower marginal costs and increase potential output. In the firm's view, these productivity gains are disinflationary and supportive of growth over the medium term, a pattern the note equates with prior technological advances such as steam, electrification, and computing.
Additional indicators cited in the note include expanding new business formation, based on U.S. Census Bureau data, and improvements in forward-looking components of Citadel Securities' own labor market tracking. The firm also attributes part of the increase in construction hiring to planned data center projects.
"It is also worth recalling that over the past century, successive waves of technological change have not produced runaway exponential growth, nor have they rendered labor obsolete. Instead, they have been just sufficient to keep long-term trend growth in advanced economies near 2%," Flight concludes.
The note's overall posture stresses that current evidence points to measured AI adoption, meaningful capital investment, and persistent demand for software engineers, rather than a rapid collapse in white-collar employment. At the same time, Citadel Securities' framing rests on interpreting AI as a productivity-enhancing force whose macroeconomic consequences will play out over time.
Data points cited in the note
- Unemployment rate: 4.28% in 2026.
- AI capital expenditure: 2% of GDP, or $650 billion.
- Planned U.S. data centers: approximately 2,800.
- Software engineer job postings: up 11% year-over-year, according to Indeed.
- AI adoption trends: described as stable by the St. Louis Fed Real Time Population Survey.
Citadel Securities' note provides an alternative reading of current AI developments and their likely macroeconomic effects, arguing that the phenomenon looks more like an S-curve adoption process and a supply-side productivity shock than an immediate source of widespread job destruction.