How the Future Could Look with a Regenerative Economy

The economic transformation is coming. The question is: regenerative or further extractive?

At Stray, we're not betting on a return to simpler times. We're betting on navigating complexity wisely. With Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) on our doorstep and automation reshaping entire industries, the economic system we've known for centuries is about to fundamentally change. The question isn't whether disruption is coming - it's whether that disruption leads to unprecedented inequality or unprecedented abundance.

The economic implications are staggering when AGI systems become capable of performing most cognitive tasks currently done by humans. But what if this moment came with a regenerative approach? What if capitalism, in this moment, could evolve, but with a regenerative mindset?

We're already seeing platform cooperatives like Stocksy and Resonate that distribute ownership among users. Regenerative agriculture companies are proving that practices that heal soil can also generate superior returns. Mission-driven businesses are demonstrating that stakeholder capitalism can outperform shareholder capitalism over time.

The most interesting experiments are happening in financing structures themselves: Revenue-based financing, where investors receive returns based on business success rather than equity extraction. Community investment funds where local residents own stakes in the businesses serving them. Carbon credit markets that finally make ecological restoration profitable at scale.

As AGI reshapes the economy, the companies and communities with the best narrative infrastructure will be best positioned to navigate the transition. This means the stories we tell about technology, work, and value creation become as important as the technologies themselves.

Consider how the narrative around remote work shifted during the pandemic - not because the technology was new, but because our stories about what was possible suddenly changed. The same dynamic will determine whether AGI leads to a future of technological unemployment or technological liberation.

The transition is already underway. We can see it in the gig economy, in the rise of creator platforms, in the growth of impact investing, in the emergence of regenerative finance. Each of these represents a different way of organizing economic activity—some more extractive, some more regenerative.

The venture capital flowing into AI today will determine whether those systems are designed to concentrate power or distribute it. The policy frameworks being developed now will determine whether the benefits of automation are captured by the few or shared by the many. The business models being pioneered today will determine whether the economy of tomorrow is characterized by abundance or scarcity.

This is why we focus on transformative narrative infrastructure alongside innovative economic models. The stories we tell about what's possible during this transition will literally shape what becomes possible. If we only tell stories about technological disruption leading to unemployment and inequality, that's the future we'll create.

But if we tell stories about technology enabling new forms of economic participation, about abundance being distributed rather than hoarded, about communities having agency in shaping their economic futures—then we create space for those possibilities to emerge.

The regenerative economy isn't a utopian fantasy. It's a practical response to the reality that our current economic system is fundamentally incompatible with both planetary boundaries and technological abundance. The question isn't whether change is coming—it's whether we'll be intentional about the direction of that change.

What future are you investing in?