What happened
LinkedIn launched a "seems like AI slop" button on July 30th, used over a million times in two weeks, as Pangram data showed 41% of long-form posts from April to June 2026 were fully AI-generated.
Why it matters
Posts from generic LLMs drew around 40% fewer views, suggesting readers are tuning out identical, formulaic copy rather than rewarding the volume it was meant to supply.
What to watch
The test is whether marketers shift from generic prompts toward distinctive, data-backed voices, since AI use itself is not the problem the author identifies, only unthinking slop is.
WHO IT HITSMarketers and business leaders who post on company and personal LinkedIn accounts are most directly affected, since their reach appears to fall when they rely on generic LLM output.
Summaries like this, in your inbox every morning.
The article frames the slop problem as a consequence of scale. As more channels and content formats emerged, and as algorithms kept rewarding frequent posting, writing social posts shifted from occasional to mandatory for business leaders. Everyone reached for the same tools, so an S&P 500 CEO and a local mom-and-pop ended up effectively sharing the same copywriter — something the author notes would have been inconceivable even 10 years ago.
The proposed fix is not to abandon AI. The author, who has spent a decade teaching AI to write marketing emails, push notifications and texts that drive conversions, argues the answer is to abandon slop specifically: posts should sound like the person writing them and contain something only that person owns, such as data, stats, figures, stories or anecdotes. Reading a finished post out loud and cutting anything you would not say to a colleague is offered as a practical filter.
The stakes hinge on whether a distinct voice actually converts attention into trust. The author draws a line between engagement, which slop can chase, and conversion, which comes from readers who remember and trust the writer. Whether that distinction holds as AI-generated content keeps filling feeds is likely to determine how much a recognizable voice is worth on platforms like LinkedIn.
Pick your industry and the AI tools you use, and get news related to your work every day.
Free · 30 seconds with Google · unsubscribe anytimeWhat is AIToday? →
Ask AI anything about this article. The AI reads this article, earlier AIToday articles, and Wikipedia, and cites its sources. Q&As are published on this page for other readers too.
