I recently opened a newsletter from a brand I love, and something felt off. The content had the right structure and keywords, but the tone was cold and robotic. The subject line was promising, but the body read like a glorified listicle. I scrolled halfway through and clicked out. A few hours later, I saw the same phrases repeated in a LinkedIn post from a different company; it was the same AI-generated content, dressed up in two different brands.
Using AI isn’t the problem. It’s that brands are handing over the keys without anyone watching the road.
Flavorless Content Soup
If you work in marketing, you’ve probably felt the tension. AI can help you work faster, spark creativity, and cover more ground. But too much automation can cause brand inauthenticity. Lately, a lot of what’s flooding feeds and inboxes falls into a category the internet has not-so-lovingly dubbed “AI Slop.”
AI Slop is content that looks polished on the surface but doesn’t say much; it’s generic, templated, and surface level. You’ve seen it … probably multiple times just today. It happens when someone treats AI like a writer instead of a tool. The problem is that AI might not understand context, audience, or intent, so when people let AI take the driver’s seat, it produces blog posts, captions, and web copy that lack the true brand voice. Without a guiding hand to fine-tune tone, context, and purpose, AI-generated content can drift into generic territory.
Don’t Skip the Struggle
Another side effect worth exploring is how AI can unintentionally soften your creative edge if you let it do all the work.
When ChatGPT delivers a solid first draft in seconds, it’s easy to skip the messy middle of the creative process. But that middle part, where you wrestle with an idea, refine your thinking, and shape your voice, is where growth and originality thrive. It’s not that AI erases this process, but that it can tempt us to shortcut it.
Used well, AI becomes a creative partner that clears the clutter and helps you get to the good stuff faster. It can take on the heavy lifting of structure and surface-level ideas, freeing you up to dive deeper and add the nuance, emotion, and voice that only a human can bring. That’s not dulling creativity; it’s accelerating it.
What About SEO?
AI-generated content often performs well when it comes to SEO. It follows the rules, includes keywords, and even optimizes headers. Google has even stated that using AI-generated content will not harm SEO rankings.
That said, Google’s algorithm is increasingly focused on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust, known as E-E-A-T. While AI can help organize and structure content, it cannot replace genuine lived experience or build trust on its own.
There is also the risk of duplicate content. AI tools are trained on existing material and sometimes borrow phrases too closely. Without careful review or plagiarism checks, you could end up with content that feels both uninspired and unoriginal.
So, Where Does AI Fit?
AI is a powerful tool that’s transforming how we create and deliver content. I’ve used it to brainstorm ideas, speed up outlines, and help beat writer’s block (including for parts of this blog post)! It’s a powerful copilot. But that’s the key word: copilot.
If you’re going to use AI in your content process, here’s how to make sure it helps more than it hurts:
- Review everything with human eyes. AI doesn’t know when it sounds stiff, off-brand, or just plain weird and nonsensical. Make sure someone on your team gives every piece of content a thorough review.
- Run plagiarism checks. Just because AI wrote it doesn’t mean it’s original. Use tools like Grammarly or Scribbr to make sure you’re not accidentally lifting language from another site or brand.
- Include your brand voice in your prompts. Help the tool help you. The more guidance you provide up front, like tone, style, and audience, the closer the output will be to what you need.
Robots Are Our Friends
I’ll admit that I sometimes miss the days when hearing the term AI only brought to mind a certain Philadelphia Sixers legend with a killer crossover: Allen Iverson. But like it or not, AI isn’t going anywhere. In fact, if you’re not using it, you risk falling behind. The speed and efficiency AI offers are real and necessary, and when it’s used well, AI supercharges your team without replacing the essential human touch that drives real impact.
We can’t forget that some of the best things come in pairs: Jobs and Wozniak, mac and cheese, Shrek and Donkey. Great content works the same way. It’s not just human made or AI generated, but the perfect partnership of both: AI powered and human approved.
