The term “AI slop” has become a common fixture in technology and work newsletters and publications, with critics warning users against relying solely on artificial intelligence for purposeful work. One recent case of AI slop involves consulting giant Deloitte partly refunding the Australian government after a report it was commissioned to produce was found to contain fake citations, phantom footnotes, and even a made-up quote. Parts of the report were later revealed to have been drafted with AI tools. According to The Conversation, AI slop refers to low- to mid-quality content created with AI tools, often with little regard for accuracy or quality.
With workers globally turning to AI for increased productivity, another term called workslop has emerged. Harvard Business Review described it as AI-generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task. Some 40% of people say they received workslop in September, according to a recent BetterUp and Stanford survey of 1,150 full-time U.S. workers.
AI workslop’s impact on productivity
AI produces work that looks authentic and accurate, but this work contains errors of grammar, facts, or personality that dampen the credibility of both young and old firms, as well as the professionals relying on it. The extra work that goes into detecting workslop can be time-consuming for teams. Checking for workslop then creates extra layers of fact-checking, cross-checking, and copyediting that make it almost more cost-effective to do the work manually. It also puts a burden on the reviewers who have to go through extra trouble trying to verify and validate the work they have received.
According to HBR, while AI tools quickly produce well-formatted slides, long structured reports, seemingly articulate summaries of academic papers by non-experts, and usable code, without polish, they can lead to content that is unhelpfully incomplete or missing crucial context about the task at hand.
The Stanford and BetterUp survey shows that employees were spending an average of one hour and 56 minutes dealing with workslop. Based on participants’ estimates of time spent and their self-reported salaries, workslop was costing their organizations $186 per month. In an organization of 10,000 workers, this would amount to $9 million per year in lost productivity.
AI workslop is dampening credibility in PR
PR workslop shows its face as generic AI-written press releases and pitches, deepfake videos of leadership, and low-quality market research. In fact, PR and strategic communication firms that do not rely on AI for creativity and content ideation and generation are gaining a competitive advantage.
According to a new survey by Global Results Communications (GRC), 80% of journalists who said they rely on PR for content and sources have grown skeptical about quality due to the use of AI in PR.
Looking further at the numbers shows that more than 43% of journalists hold negative views about AI-generated pitches due to their robotic nature, lack of perspective, and erosion of editorial trust. Meanwhile, 81% of respondents who rely on PR professionals occasionally as a source say half of the PR pitches they get are bad, and half of the content or professionals they rely on are still press releases, with other formats like case studies and thought leadership pieces that offer a chance to show professional insight and depth still lagging behind.
Centering human involvement in content generation
PR executives like Drew Olanoff of Thumbs Up advocate for human editors to ensure that when full or partial AI content gets to their table, they make sure that the “AI buck” stops with them. He also called for the content creation process to be as organic and human as possible, ensuring paragraphs are created, reviewed, edited, and re-reviewed by humans instead. To Olanoff, using AI for checking grammatical errors or providing a different way to say something is admissible. He also cautioned against writing pitches that can be ignored as workslop at first glance. Skepticism from journalists, the limited time and attention they have to review pitches, and the stereotypical look of AI-generated content in pitches can cause journalists to ignore them.
Valerie Christopherson, the founder of GRC, said that their survey reveals journalists overwhelmingly want human insight, editorial context, and authenticity in PR engagements. While she admits that the future of PR will involve the use of technology to enhance the human voice, she advised the PR industry to turn to thoughtful, smarter storytelling.
Closing notes
AI is great for productivity when used responsibly. However, overreliance on AI tools in the PR process can quickly turn productivity into loss and erode your credibility with journalists. You can work with TechPR Africa’s content consultation services, in-house content writing training, ghostwriting, press release development, or short and comprehensive PR campaigns. All are centered on experienced human editors who use AI thoughtfully without producing AI workslop.