Inestors Should Not Ignore the AI Scare Trade – Analyst

The CEO of the deVere Group has warned that the emerging “AI scare trade” sweeping through global markets should not be dismissed, following sharp declines across software, payments and logistics sectors.

The caution from Nigel Green comes after shares in software and payments firms tumbled on Monday when Citrini Research published a report outlining risks tied to artificial intelligence.

That release triggered broad selling across delivery platforms, private-capital companies and financial-services providers.

“Markets are delivering a serious signal. Capital is being repriced around the implications of AI and tech in real time,” Green says, adding that those treating the moves as background noise are “underestimating the scale of structural change now underway.”

He argues the recent shift marks a turning point in how investors assess technological disruption. After more than a year in which AI was “largely priced as upside,” markets are now evaluating displacement risk, a transition he says is altering valuation frameworks across industries.

Wealth-management names also came under pressure after new AI-driven planning tools demonstrated the speed at which elements of domestic advice could be systemised. Green warns that firms built around process-driven models could face margin compression.

However, he stresses that applying automation assumptions across entire industries oversimplifies the landscape, noting that clients with cross-border assets and multi-currency portfolios require personalised structuring that AI cannot independently anticipate.

Green links the broader repricing to geopolitical fragmentation, shifting tax regimes and rising regulatory divergence. He says the key question for investors is whether AI strengthens a company’s value proposition or renders its core function commoditised.