AI Slop: The Hidden Cost of Digital Mediocrity

A few weeks ago, a CEO called me urgently. "Max, we have a serious problem with AI." I expected the usual: resistance to change, fear of costs, worried unions. Instead, he shows me a 50-slide presentation. "Look, our marketing team made this with ChatGPT. It's terrible! How can we stop this?"

I open it. Slide after slide of cosmic banalities that could apply to any company, from the corner bar to NASA. Phrases like "leveraging synergies to optimize processes in a holistic perspective." Zero real analysis. Zero personality. Zero value.

"How much did it cost you?" I ask. "Well, three hours of one person's work... meaning half an hour to create it and two and a half hours to fix it."

Welcome to the era of AI Slop, literally the digital slush that's poisoning the internet and increasingly your inbox too. And the best part is that we produce it ourselves, convinced we're at the forefront of innovation.

What is AI Slop and Why Should You Fear It

AI Slop is content generated by artificial intelligence without a human brain. It's the illusion of productivity. It's that 500-word email to say "ok, see you Tuesday." It's the report that looks professional but that your 2005 intern would have done better.

Wikipedia defines it as "low-quality media content created using generative AI." But the definition is reductive. AI Slop is a virus that infects corporate culture. It's laziness disguised as efficiency. It's the reason why 95% of organizations don't see ROI from AI.

Here's a painful number: every episode of "workslop" (the term coined by Harvard Business Review for corporate AI Slop) costs $186 per month per employee. One hour and 56 minutes wasted managing mediocrity generated by AI. Multiply by all your employees armed with ChatGPT. So much for "30 euros is a lot for a license."

I can recognize AI Slop with my eyes closed by now. It always has the same characteristics:

• Pompous structured language that says everything and nothing

• Zero concrete examples from real life, unless you make them up

• Perfect structure but absent soul

• Could be used by anyone, anywhere, for anything

I use what I call "the baker test": if your digital output resembles what your cousin who works at the local bakery could produce, it's AI Slop. Period.

The Real Cost: When Mediocrity Becomes Systemic

The economics of AI Slop are perverse. NPR studied it: it's fueled by middle-class professionals looking for shortcuts. Content creators churning out 10 articles a day. Marketing managers producing soulless campaigns. Consultants generating reports miles long full of hot air.

But the paradox is another. AI can only remix what exists. It's like having a super-talented intern - my favorite metaphor - who has read all of Wikipedia but has never lived a day of real life. Knows everything in theory, zero in practice.

For the Italian market, where personal relationships are still worth gold, AI Slop is pure poison. I've seen Made in Italy SMEs lose longtime clients over a commercial proposal clearly generated by AI. Twenty years of relationship thrown away to save two hours of real work.

The other day a Brianza entrepreneur tells me: "Max, I received three practically identical quotes from different suppliers in response to a structured request we had made. Only the logo changed but the structure and concepts were identical." This is AI Slop destroying competitive differentiation. When everyone uses the same artificial brain, who wins? Nobody.

How to Defend Yourself: The AI-PLUG Method Against Mediocrity

After training over 1,000 managers and supporting 200 companies in AI adoption, I developed the AI-PLUG© framework precisely to combat this drift. In 100 days we transform AI from a garbage generator into a real business accelerator.

The key lies in the "Practice" phase of the framework. It's not enough to give ChatGPT to employees. You need method. You need discipline. You need what I call "the 3C filter":

Coherence: Does the output reflect your values and your tone of voice? Or does it sound like it was written by a robot who graduated in 1987?

Concreteness: Are there real examples from your experience? Or just theory fished from some MBA handbook?

Context: Is it specific to your industry and situation? Or could it also apply to a funeral home in Alaska?

In the "Learn" phase I teach teams the fundamental difference:

• Useful output: Saves time while maintaining quality and personality

• AI Slop: Looks like work done but is digital hot air

The difference? The first requires you to think BEFORE delegating to AI. The second is pure laziness.

During my workshops, I sometimes do this exercise. I ask participants to generate an email with AI. Then I rewrite it adding three elements from their personal experience. The difference is abysmal. The first makes you yawn. The second generates business.

The Practical Solution: Five Moves to Escape the Trap

Here are five concrete actions you can implement starting tomorrow morning:

1. Slop Audit: For one week, mark everything you produce with AI. Then reread it. How much would you throw away? That's AI Slop.

2. The 70/30 Rule: AI generates 30% of the content (structure, research, draft). You add 70% (experience, examples, personality). Never the opposite.

3. Quality Prompt Library: Create specific prompts for your company. Not "write a professional email" but "write in our brand voice, with these concrete examples, for this specific client."

4. Anti-Slop AI Team: Form a group that defines quality standards. They're not AI police, they're coaches who help colleagues use it intelligently.

5. Measure Value, Not Volume: Wrong KPI: "We produced 50 documents with AI." Right KPI: "AI saved us 20 hours invested in real innovation."

An Uncomfortable Question to Conclude

How many of you, reading this article, thought "I don't produce AI Slop"?

I challenge you. Take the last important document you created with AI. Count: how many sentences could belong to anyone? How many examples come from your direct experience? How much of your original thinking survived?

If the answer makes you uncomfortable, welcome to the club. We're all learning. The difference is between those who settle for mediocrity and those who use AI to amplify human excellence.

AI Slop is not destiny. It's a choice. As I always say: "Enjoy Artificial Intelligence responsibly!" - and responsibility starts with refusing digital garbage.

What's your experience with AI Slop in your company? Do you have examples to share? Write to me, I'm really curious to hear your stories.

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Ah, what you're reading now is the only part I actually wrote myself, Massimiliano. The rest is AI-Slop generated by my AIs while we were discussing this at a workshop.

We wrote it using my Personal AI Assistant (Substack) to also reflect on the plausibility and difficulty sometimes of distinguishing Slop from content created with thought.

I did some editing, I couldn't keep everything because it made me cringe, and I'm still a bit embarrassed by this AI-Slop text written by AI against AI-Slop.

The difference between this article and pure AI Slop? That you 'feel' what to remove and what to modify. And maybe that's exactly the job of the future.

How many articles "written by experts" did you read this week that were exactly like this?

But above all: had you noticed? And does it matter?

I'll stop here. Who knows if I really wrote this second part myself.