Citadel Securities is countering Citrini’s AI-driven US unemployment scenario, noting that multiple forces act as natural barriers toward mass job displacement.
In its 2026 Global Intelligence Crisis report, Citadel first cites data from the St. Louis Fed’s Real Time Population Survey to show that AI diffusion speed might be creeping up, but is in no way flashing signs of near-term displacement risk.
“We would posit that if AI represents imminent displacement risk, the real-time population data would show an inflection upwards in the daily use of AI for work. The data seems unexpectedly stable and presents little evidence of any imminent displacement risk.”
The Miami-based market maker also says that tech diffusion typically follows an S-curve, where early adoption is slow and expensive before witnessing growth acceleration as costs plummet. Citadel adds that growth usually decelerates as latecomers are less productive or less profitable.
“Despite this, markets often extrapolate the acceleration phase linearly, but history implies pace of adoption plateaus as organizational integration is costly, regulation emerges and diminishing marginal returns exist in economic deployment. The risk of displacement declines with a slower pace of adoption.”
Turning to AI infrastructure, Citadel notes that displacing white-collar work would require enormous compute and energy. According to the firm, rapid automation expansion would push up marginal costs, ultimately making AI more expensive than human labor.
“If the marginal cost of compute rises above the marginal cost of human labor for certain tasks, substitution will not occur, creating a natural economic boundary. This dynamic contrasts sharply with narratives assuming frictionless replication of intelligence.”
Even if AI capital substitutes labor, Citadel highlights that democratic nations like the United States would likely enact regulatory and fiscal policies that address worst-case outcomes.
“There is little evidence of AI disruption in labor market data as of today. In fact, the forward-looking components of our labor market tracking have improved, and AI data center construction appears to be driving a pick-up in construction hiring.”
Citadel concludes that AI will likely be a complement rather than a substitute for labor and believes the technology could offset headwinds such as an ageing population, deglobalization and climate change.
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