Monitor 001 / Check-in 02 of 8 / MARCH 2026
Two analysts wrote a memo from June 2028 about an AI-driven crash. Every month we check which parts of it are coming true. This is the March 2026 reading, kept exactly as it was written. Source memo: THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS, “What follows is a scenario, not a prediction.”.
So far · Machines: Happening. People: Starting. Money: Mixed.
The first month with hard numbers on both halves of the thesis, and they point in opposite directions. Real companies cut real staff and named AI as the reason. At the same time the first sector-level credit data arrives and software is the safest thing in the book, not the most dangerous. We are recording that contradiction rather than resolving it.
Trailing twelve months to January 2026, up from 5.6% in December. Driven by consumer products and healthcare services.
Touches 10 (supports) · Funds Society — U.S. Private Credit Default Rate Continues to Climb
Third-largest sector by issuer count, with three unique defaults over the period. Fitch says risks for software and cloud services emerge primarily over the medium term.
The aggregate is at a record and software is the reason it is not higher. That is the exact inverse of the memo's mechanism.
Touches 11 (contradicts) · Funds Society — U.S. Private Credit Default Rate Continues to Climb
Reported alongside the first decline in enterprise seat counts in the company's history.
Touches 03 (supports), 09 (supports) · KORE1 — Atlassian Layoffs 2026: Where the Cuts Are Hitting
Strategist Joyce Jiang notes software is about 26% of BDC holdings and 19% of private-credit CLO assets, with weak credit metrics. Says AI disruption has not yet hit private-credit fundamentals in a material way, and that an 8% spike would be significant but not systemic.
A forecast, not an observation. Filed as the thing to check against later.
Touches 11 (unresolved) · Bloomberg — Private Credit Default Rates to Reach 8%, Morgan Stanley Says
Bill McDermott on CNBC, within the next couple of years.
Touches 04 (unresolved) · Fortune — ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott on Gen Z graduate unemployment
The chief executive says the work is now 100% done by agents; the role was eliminated and staff moved to outbound.
Touches 03 (supports) · Taskade — Great SaaS Unbundling: AI Agents vs Per-Seat
Argues large-scale deployment stalls on governance, audit, regulatory review and board liability, and that roughly 15-20% of white-collar tasks get automated over four years rather than half of workers in two.
Touches 02 (contradicts) · Forbes — It's 2030. The Citrini AI Crisis Never Came.
The month's lesson is that the equity market and the credit market disagree completely about software. Worth keeping those as two separate links rather than one, which is why L09 and L11 are tracked apart.
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A predicted symptom appearing does not mean the predicted mechanism caused it.