Remember when we thought AI would just steal our jobs quietly in the background? Well, plot twist: it’s apparently decided to have a very public nervous breakdown instead, and it’s dragging the entire stock market down with it.
What started as a “routine” $2 trillion software sector wipeout last week (because apparently that’s just Tuesday now) has turned into the financial equivalent of a zombie apocalypse, spreading panic across industries faster than you can say “ChatGPT.”
The Software Massacre
It all kicked off when Anthropic dropped some new Claude plugins, and suddenly everyone realized that maybe, just maybe, AI could actually replace entire software companies. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF is down 20% year-to-date, which in normal times would be called “a disaster” but now is just “Thursday.”
The casualties? AppLoving Corp down 13%, Cisco down 11%, and even Palantir (the company that literally makes AI surveillance tools) dropped 6%. When the AI company’s stock falls because of AI fears, you know we’ve entered some kind of meta-nightmare.
The Karaoke Machine Plot Twist
But here’s where it gets absolutely bonkers. A company called Algorhythm Holdings—which used to make karaoke machines (I’m not making this up)—published a white paper about AI logistics and somehow managed to tank the entire trucking industry.
RXO plummeted 24%, CH Robinson fell 15%, and the iShares Transportation ETF dropped 3% for the week. Meanwhile, the former karaoke company’s stock shot up 30%. Because apparently in 2026, saying “we have AI for trucks” is more valuable than actually having trucks.
Nobody Is Safe
The panic spread faster than office gossip. Wealth managers got hammered when Altruist unveiled an AI tax planning tool, sending LPL Financial down 14% and Charles Schwab down 9%. Because why pay a human to do your taxes when a robot can probably mess them up just as efficiently?
Real estate wasn’t spared either. CBRE dropped 19% and Jones Lang LaSalle fell 17% as investors suddenly realized AI might disrupt… property management? At this point, I’m waiting for AI to disrupt the hot dog industry and watch Nathan’s Famous crater.
The Bottom Line
Even Nvidia’s Jensen Huang called the software selloff “the most illogical thing in the world,” which is rich coming from the guy whose company is basically printing money from AI chips. But he’s not wrong—we’re witnessing peak AI hysteria, where a karaoke machine company can move markets and everyone’s afraid their job will be automated by next Tuesday.
The Nasdaq is down 1% for the week, major indexes are wobbling, and somewhere out there, a ChatGPT bot is probably writing a better analysis of this chaos than any human analyst. The irony is not lost on us.
Welcome to 2026, where the robots haven’t taken over yet, but they’ve definitely figured out how to give everyone a collective panic attack.