AI slop, a label for low-quality, mass-produced content generated by artificial intelligence, isn’t deadly but can be dangerous for advertisers.
It’s all about gaming the system. The high volume content, often mimicking quality, can draw advertisers away from premium publishers in a programmatic monster wave.
At a casual glance, slop looks okay but closer inspection reveals strings of buzzwords and tired cliches, appearing to be saying something important but doesn’t quite mean much.
And the content can include video and images, as well as text, sometimes running on websites pretending to be news.
One study by Stanford University researchers shows a new reality in which companies, consumers and international organisations substantially rely on generative AI for communications.
But take care. AI slop’s volume is putting genuine creativity into shadow.
“It can look glossy and well-structured, but the giveaway is how quickly it collapses under scrutiny,” Matt Holmes, head of creative strategy & ideation at creative agency MBCS, told AdNews.
“It’s generic, bland, and interchangeable, the same language and ideas that could belong to any brand, anywhere. It lacks cultural specificity, emotional edge and true originality. You won’t find sharp insights, fresh perspectives, or details that feel lived-in.
“Instead, you get clichés stitched together with synthetic fluency. In a world where attention is scarce, people sense instantly when content has no pulse. If it doesn’t spark reaction, conversation, or connection - it’s slop.”
AI slop is flooding feeds with filler, creating a fog of sameness.
“It trains audiences to scroll faster, to trust less, and to expect the worst,” Holmes said.
“For brands, that’s dangerous as it devalues the craft of storytelling, erodes cultural currency, and makes it harder for meaningful work to break through.
“When every feed is stuffed with auto-generated content pollution, the effect isn’t neutral; it actively lowers the bar, numbing people to the very idea that advertising can be entertaining, insightful, or moving. The end result is a race to the bottom that no brand should want to win.”
The answer isn’t to ignore AI slop, but to outclass it.
“Brands can’t afford to play in the shallows of content that looks like everything else,” Holmes said.
“The antidote is doubling down on human creativity, cultural intelligence, and craft. That means creating stories that could only come from this brand, at this moment, in this culture. “Work that people genuinely want to watch, share, talk about, and see again. At MBCS, we believe the future belongs to brands who reject shortcuts and instead commit to making content that earns attention and creates real cultural connection.”
AI slop is content generated purely to game attention algorithms and attract advertising dollars, usually at the lowest possible cost, according to June Cheung, head of JAPAC at Scope3, the collaborative sustainability platform decarbonising media and advertising.
“Its purpose isn’t to inform, entertain, or add value, but to drive pageviews and monetise at scale,” Cheung said.
“The result is content that is shallow, repetitive, and often clearly not written by a credible human source.
“Consumers are getting better at spotting it and instinctively scroll away. But brands and agencies may be buying it unknowingly because AI slop often hides in the long tail of programmatic, bundled with made-for-advertising (MFA) sites.
“These sites typically have convoluted, opaque supply chains designed to maximise revenue and Scope3 data shows they emit roughly double the carbon of the market average.
“One of the most effective ways to detect this inventory is through emissions. High-emitting supply paths are a red flag that the media chain is built for monetisation, not meaningful content. AI-generated sites can be filtered out at scale using agentic tools and training agents to exclude non-trusted sources, or generic, low-quality content.”
Conrad Tallariti, SVP & managing director APAC at DoubleVerify, a software platform for digital media measurement, data and analytics, said advertisers should proactively engage with their DSP and SSP partners to understand how they identify and assess AI-generated content, whether they conduct regular inventory audits, and what safeguards they have in place to uphold content quality, engagement and brand suitability standards.
“GenAI slop is fundamentally harming media quality by siphoning budgets away from reputable publishers to low-quality inventory,” said Tallariti.
“These sites often mimic reputable publishers through the use of deceptive URLs, misleading ad tech vendors and buyers into thinking they are credible domains - when in fact they exist solely to drive ad revenue by churning out low-quality, AI-generated content.
“Beyond the direct financial loss, they are eroding trust in programmatic media buying and might harm brand reputation by associating it with untrustworthy, low-quality content.
“Our recent research uncovered hundreds of these domains - an example being Synthetic Echo - which exploit programmatic systems to monetise at scale. Notably, leading B2B and B2C brands have been found running ads on these sites, likely unaware of the questionable inventory.”
Nick Grinberg, head of strategy, Next&Co, said brands will have to find their own level with the amount of AI content they produce.
“The brands that win won’t be the ones pumping out the most AI content - they’ll be the ones that know when to lean on it and when to ditch it for the human touch,” he said.
Dave Mooney, head of planning, BCM, said there will be one school of thought that says algorithmically generated creative will scale quickly delivering more content, faster and cheaper.
“This may be true, but if it’s at the quality of slop, our industry is in big trouble,” he said.
“As the media landscape fragments, we are no longer competing for isolated, focused attention but instead for slices of an overlapping attention. With this in mind, Slop is easily missed because it has no soul.
“So, if you’re scaling your content strategy with slop, stop. On the other hand, it could actually end up sharpening our filters, giving us a better benchmark for ‘good’.
“With algorithms now determining not only what content is seen, but also which ads are delivered and to whom, AI shapes our entire digital experience. This means a shift towards ‘algorithmic planning’. This means evolving from channel-based to outcome-based strategies that lean into the strengths of platform algorithms to surface relevant content in relevant moments. It’s an approach that can deliver exceptional results but needs to be driven by good content, not slop.
“You could argue that slop was and is inevitable, a predictable result of powerful new AI tools flooding the market.
“If you look back to the beginnings of anything, it’s rarely an immediate masterpiece. The pilot of the best TV shows of all time are rarely as good as the story arc of season two or season three.
“As society learns the capability of AI and how best to apply it, perhaps the internet is going through its slop era, and this is simply a mass calibration of what is and is not acceptable when it comes to generative content?
“At the end of the day, as technology gets smarter, it becomes more important to put people at the centre using technology to amplify human strengths like creativity, empathy and adaptability. Slop isn’t that. But who knows? Perhaps with a little patience, regulation and moderation; it could lead to some interesting application of AI that can only be uncovered through experimenting in the slop?
“In the meantime, advertisers can negate the risks associated with appearing alongside slop by curating inventory and applying strong planning principles from the beginning to ensure quality inventory leads to quality impressions.”
Alfie Lagos, founder and director, Lexlab, said the rise of AI-generated slop isn’t just about dodgy content, it’s a proxy for something deeper. A loss of control.
“As the advertising ecosystem gets more fragmented and platform complexity increases, the black boxes are getting blacker,” he said.
“There’s a growing sense of streamlining on steroids, but without the safety rails. What you end up with is a blended mush of automation and optimisation where no one’s really sure who’s steering the ship.
“For advertisers, the risk isn’t just brand adjacency or wasted spend, it’s the evaporation of accountability. AI can absolutely help start conversations, but it should never be left to finish them. That part is on us. Any integration of AI into media must be anchored in knowledge, control and, most importantly, responsibility.
“At Lexlab, we take the merging of AI and automation seriously. The north star is always accountability. Can we clearly explain to our clients why something’s working, or why it’s not? If everything gets mushed together, we lose the ability to test, learn and iterate.
“Our approach is deliberately structured. We follow a strict hierarchy in campaign architecture and design. Naming conventions are consistent across every channel. Audiences are meaningfully segmented, not just for targeting but to create feedback loops that show what’s working and why in our client dashboards. Objective-based buying ensures we’re giving the algorithms the right carrots, TikTok wants engagement, YouTube needs completions, search is chasing conversions or ROAS.
“We never run unfettered on open exchange inventory. Ever. It’s whitelist only and everything is IAS verified. And finally, when we write comments or copy, I like to sometimes add the occassional speling misteak, just to let people know a real human wrote it. Not some dum dum using chatgtp.....”
Honor Severs, head of creative at Vonnimedia, likens the overreliance on AI to turning creative output into the equivalent of fast food.
“It's easy to get and instantly gratifying, but it's devoid of the nutrients, the real, messy, human thought that a brand needs to thrive,” said Severs.
“The greatest illusion of AI slop is its promise of convenience. During our fast-paced day, it offers a quick, cheap fix to a core business problem: the need for content. But this is a Faustian bargain, where we trade genuine substance for a quick bite.
“Like fast food, AI-generated content is created from a limited menu of ingredients and a predictable formula. It satisfies an immediate need for content volume but leaves the audience feeling empty. The problem isn't just the lack of a personal, human touch; it's the systemic de-prioritisation of quality and originality in favour of speed.
“We are now paying more for ad space that points to less and less, a trend we can attribute directly to AI slop. Ad platforms have made content creation so seamless, with integrated tools and one-click options that incentivise a flood of low-quality, AI-generated content.
“This material is not only cheap and easy to produce but also highly formulaic. The same ‘slop’ is endlessly reheated and re-served across platforms, diluting brand presence, muddying brand identity, and eroding trust with the audience.
“No one expects a Michelin-star dining experience from a drive-thru, yet we're being conditioned to accept this level of quality in our professional communications.”
Angus Wright, website and SEO manager, Yango, said the rise of AI Slop is creating significant challenges for the advertising industry, particularly in programmatic advertising.
“The ‘hidden cost’ of this content is its direct impact on brand safety and reputation,” he said.
“Ad placements can end up alongside spam and low-quality content, damaging a brand's credibility.
“Content farms that leverage AI can operate on a massive, cheap scale. These Made-For-Advertising (MFA) sites often overload pages with display, video, native, and pop-up ads to maximise revenue, creating a spammy and difficult user experience.
“This also affects ad-creation though as we have seen a rise in AI-generated ads, particularly across social platforms like TikTok. The use of AI lowers production costs and speeds up turnaround times but often lacks the creativity and authenticity that helps people connect with brands. In some cases, these ads end up damaging brand perception more than they help."
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