For a growing share of professionals, AI isn't the productivity booster we were promised — it's a producer of "workslop" that delivers no real value and instead causes lots of (costly) confusion. Recent research from Stanford University and BetterUp Labs found that 40% of full-time U.S. desk workers had received AI-generated slop (slide decks, lengthy reports, overly tightened summaries, code without context, etc.) which took a considerable amout of time to fix. As Delaney Rebernik explains, this isn't just an annoying time-waster; it's actually costing your company money.
Why should you be concerned on the marketing side? AI slop hurts more than your bottom line. If this sub-par content is published on your website, your social media accounts, or any of your external communications, it could hurt your brand's reputation. Users (like your customers) view the sender of AI slop as less creative, less capable, unreliable, untrustworthy, and unintelligent.
Yikes.
Meanwhile, your C-suite is likely all-in on AI. As Rebernik notes, nearly three in four U.S. CEOs view AI as a top investment priority, with four in five planning to spend at least 10% of their budget on it, with 90% expecting returns in three years or less.
The good news is that you can avoid AI slop by implementing a human-led, empathetic approach to integrating AI into your workflow. This will enable you to assess whether teams are dissatisfied with, scared of, or simply confused about how to use AI effectively. You'll also need to ensure your organization has clear guardrails, not just a ChatGPT enterprise account where everyone goes wild with uploading client data and generating entire campaigns without expert guidance. The core barrier to successful scaling AI (and, really, any new tool) is learning.
Head over to ExecutiveEDGE to learn more about how to align expectations with the strengths and limitations of AI tools.
About the Author
Abby White
Vice President, Content Studio
Abby White is a content strategist, newsroom-trained writer, and brand storyteller. As Vice President of EndeavorB2B’s Content Studio, she leads client-driven custom content programs across 90+ brands and the content strategy for topic and role-based newsletters serving executive audiences. An award-winning journalist with a marketer’s mindset, Abby brings 25 years of experience leading editorial, communications, marketing, and audience-building efforts across industries.
Abby launched her first magazine, Abby’s Top 40, in 1988 and made everyone in her family read it. While attending the University of Illinois, she paid her rent as a professional notetaker, which might explain why she still gets asked to take notes in meetings. Since then, she has held editorial leadership roles at an alt weekly, a newspaper, a luxury lifestyle magazine, a business journal, a music magazine, and regional women’s magazines, developing a sharp writing edge and a conversational tone that resonates with professional audiences.
She expanded into marketing while leading communications for an entertainment industry nonprofit and later drove rebranding and audience-building efforts for an NPR music station. At EndeavorB2B, she has been instrumental in driving editorial excellence, developing scalable content strategies across multiple verticals, and building the foundation for EDGE, the company’s portfolio of executive newsletters.
And if you’re a writer interested in contributing to MarketingEDGE, she’s the person you need to (politely) bug.
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