Episode summary
Dylan Jovine | Is AI Bearish for the Stock Market?
Summary
Dylan Jovine argues Monday’s selloff was driven by two forces: tariff uncertainty and a much larger, underappreciated AI shock. He says businesses hate not knowing where trade policy will land, using Ford and GM as examples of companies that must decide where to build factories. But he spends most of the update on the idea that AI is now moving fast enough to change the economics of software, data, and services.
Jovine says his own firm has already seen tasks that once cost $8,000 to $10,000 a month shrink to a few hundred dollars through AI tools and agents. He says this is not the same AI environment as 2022 through 2025, because capabilities changed in the fourth quarter of 2025 and are now good enough to replace expensive workflows. That shift, he argues, helps small businesses but threatens companies like S&P Global, FactSet, Morningstar, IBM, Datadog, CrowdStrike, and Zscaler.
He cites a Citrini Research piece, “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis,” as a thought experiment showing how AI could boost the economy while still being bearish for stocks if it concentrates wealth into a few winners, raises white-collar unemployment, and creates broader instability. Jovine’s conclusion is that businesses need to adopt AI aggressively now, while policymakers in Washington should address the social consequences.
Key takeaways
- Dylan Jovine says Monday’s selloff reflected tariff uncertainty, but AI was the bigger and less discussed market story.
- Jovine says his firm cut certain video-production costs from $8,000 to $10,000 a month to a few hundred dollars using AI.
- Jovine argues the latest AI tools could pressure companies such as S&P Global, FactSet, Morningstar, IBM, Datadog, CrowdStrike, and Zscaler.
- Jovine says AI became materially better in the fourth quarter of 2025, making it operationally disruptive rather than theoretical.
- Jovine warns that higher white-collar unemployment could lead to more political instability and requires policy attention from Washington.
Notable quotes
“what if AI is so bullish for the economy that it's actually bearish”
“the fact that AI is going to start chewing up software”
“we could have AI host these videos basically”
“AI in the fourth quarter 2025 and now is not the same AI that we were playing with two years ago”
“What happens to those companies? You know what happens”
How the episode opens
Good morning. This is Dylan Jano with Behind the Markets. Happy Wednesday.
Today's Wednesday, February 25th. We are almost to March. Very exciting.
Anyway, today I'd like to talk about the real selloff we had on Monday. And really, it's, you know, two things drove that sell-off. One is what we discussed yesterday, tariffs.
Just the uncertainty, big, you know, business like certainty. Remember, if you're Ford or GM and you're debating where to make a factory, you say to yourself, do I make it in Canada, Mexico, US? What are the deals with the terrorists?
It's just a stew. Anyway, the other big reason is less talked about, but something I wanted to talk about with you is this article by Citrini Research that basically asks the question, what if AI is so bullish for the economy that it's actually bearish? And what they mean by that is the thing that we've been talking about, we've started to talk about in the past few weeks, which is the fact that AI is going to start chewing up software.
And I'm going to give you an example. At our firm, we post a lot of videos, these video campaigns where we're teasing out research reports. And all of a sudden, just in our own business, we could have AI host these videos basically.
So the firm that was providing these videos to us and charging us eight to 10 grand a month. We can get it done for a few hundred dollars a month. Now we can get data analytics.
We used to have to pay a lot for that. Now we're starting to move towards getting it done through an AI platform. We can have agents AI agents now fetch.
And this is the important thing that I've really been trying to get across to the people on my team.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ai productivity
- stock market sell-off
- trade policy uncertainty
- financial data providers
- enterprise software disruption
Companies and tickers mentioned
- F
- GM
- SPGI
- FDS
- MORN
- IBM
- DDOG
- CRWD
- ZS
- NVDA
- GOOGL
- GOOG
- Ford
- General Motors
- S&P Global
- FactSet
- Morningstar
- IBM
- Datadog
- CrowdStrike
- Zscaler
- Nvidia
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
- Citrini Research
Watch the episode
Watch “Dylan Jovine | Is AI Bearish for the Stock Market?” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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