Our columnist, Shirley Marschall, is back, and this week she’s taking on the rise of ‘slop’ and looking at why AI is the Ozempic of the media…

With AI music creating tracks like "I Caught Santa Claus Sniffing Cocaine" on Spotify and similar platforms, AI slop has officially reached next-level…sh**… slop.

It’s not just lurking in obscure corners of the internet anymore. It’s gone full-blown mainstream, featured on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (over 4.4m YouTube views and counting). So yes, people are noticing. And no, they don’t love it.

In the recent sci-fi satire Mountainhead, one character justifies the incoming flood of synthetic garbage with this gem:

"When people first went to the movies, they thought they were going to get hit by a train. The answer wasn’t to stop movies, it was to make more movies… We’re going to show people so much shit that they realise that nothing is serious anymore."

No. Just… no!

Social media isn’t social. Reality TV isn’t reality. AI slop isn’t content.

The Ozempic of media

But it increasingly masquerades as such. AI has truly become the Ozempic of media - slimming everything down, reshaping it artificially, and removing the effort. Quick results, minimal input. And the side effects are already flooding the internet. Sure, it works fast. But is the effect sustainable?

Probably not. And one can only wonder, not if, but when, this slop web will turn into a digital version of an abandoned desert town. Digital tumbleweeds rolling around. Bots creating content for other bots, which like and comment and share and so it goes, in an infinite bot (garbage) loop.

From content to contamination

It doesn’t just stop at music. We’re not just talking about AI-generated spam blogs, chatbot influencers, auto-written reviews, or fake product images. Massive amounts of slop sites are now flooding the web - cheaply spun, SEO-choked clickbait factories that make the old MFA (Made for Advertising) days look almost charming.

A recent Digiday piece revealed just how bad it’s gotten: There’s been a 717% (in truly mind-blowing words: seven hundred seventeen per cent!)  increase in AI slop sites since GenAI went mainstream. Deepsee.io’s blocklist of MFA and AI Slop domains jumped from 17,124 in June 2024 to 108,270 in May 2025. Of those, 96,791 were classified as AI slop.

What’s worse, these aren’t just polluting the content landscape, they’re warping metrics. Bots are creating content for bots, which index, rank, and share it with other bots. It’s an infinite loop of synthetic engagement that undermines real attention and distorts media performance.

Unrelated or maybe very related to the slop… AI is increasingly standing for:

"Average of the Internet"

AI fatigue and the end of the honeymoon

To be clear: this isn’t an anti-AI rant (though it’s telling that such disclaimers are now required when offering any critique). AI remains powerful and full of potential but AI fatigue is real. And the era of unchallenged optimism is over.

We’re entering a new phase of the hype cycle: the trough of disillusionment. And many in the industry are already shifting gears and pushing back.

• Cloudflare now blocks AI crawlers by default, flipping the power dynamic back to publishers.
• The IAB Tech Lab is preparing a Content Ingest API to control how large language models access data.
• A recent study showed that consumers are less likely to purchase products promoted as having AI features. 
• More brands are actively prioritising human creativity, choosing real voices over synthetic ones.

As José Miguel Sokoloff, CCO at MullenLowe, put it:

"If you're going to remove humans from the equation when it comes to making the product, designing the product, marketing the product, and say 'humans are a pain in the ass, they're only good if they buy' – people are going to see right through that and punish you hard."

This isn’t just consumer sentiment, it’s market correction.

Dear tech industry: Dial it down!

To reach a healthier phase, the so-called plateau of productivity, the AI conversation needs  serious recalibration.

Dear techbros, CEOs, investors, experts, and futurists, throwing around statements like:

"AI will replace humans."

"AI will eliminate all jobs."

"AGI is coming."

"100% of our workforce output is now automated."

Enough already. Dial it down a notch!!

For you, it’s a race. A business model. A chance to save money on headcount. To impress shareholders. To prove you didn’t just pour billions into hype. 

For executives, that’s a flex.

For the rest of us? It’s fuel for anxiety in already uncertain times.

Political instability. Economic stress. Social unrest. While one group of elderly men plays political chess, another group of younger men plays the AI game - and the collateral damage is human trust.

Let the dust settle

Yes, AI is still powerful.

But let’s try to let the dust settle and find a healthy balance.

Or go ahead. Keep pushing the slop.

Just don’t be surprised when your product ends up in a digital ghost town, shouting into a synthetic void.