AI slop: why low-value AI content is flooding workplaces and how to stop it

Executive overview

AI tools make it trivially easy to generate long, polished-looking documents. This has created a flood of AI slop — high-volume content with no real critical thought behind it — that buries workers and wastes time.

The fix isn't stopping document creation. It's agreeing on new workplace norms: targeted over voluminous, with clear signals about what matters and how much AI was used.

Volume of content is no longer a measure of performance — targeted, thoughtful communication is.

Why AI slop is spreading

• AI makes document creation near-instant: a few bullet points becomes a 10-page document in seconds.
• Workers conflate output volume with productivity, creating artifacts "for the sake of it."
• Recipients face content overload: too many documents, low accuracy, no way to know what's important vs. boilerplate.
• Summarising slop with AI creates "Chinese whispers" — the original intent gets lost through successive AI transformations.

The risks for organisations

• Reviewers waste hours ploughing through AI-generated content that lacks targeted human thought.
• Important points are buried or indistinguishable from filler.
• Teams normalise low-effort output, raising the cost of fixing norms later.

What leaders should do

• Lead by example — if leaders produce slop, teams will follow.
• Have the conversation now, while norms are still forming; waiting makes it harder.
• Establish team agreements on what "good" looks like for documents.
• Make it socially acceptable to ask: "Can you tell me what's actually important here?"

Practical fixes for individuals and teams

• Reframe internally: targeted content = great work; more content ≠ good work.
• Add CliffsNotes-style call-outs (e.g., a highlighted box at the top of each section) so key points are immediately findable by humans and AI alike.
• Show how much AI was used in a document — analogous to an "Australian-made" percentage label — so colleagues can calibrate accordingly.
• Create documents because they're needed, not to demonstrate productivity.