AI slop on websites: how to spot it and how to avoid it

“AI slop” is the name people now use for content that was generated, published and never really decided on by anyone. You know it when you see it, even if you can’t say why. So can your visitors, and that costs you trust before they’ve read a word about your service.

AI isn’t the problem. I use it on every project. The problem is publishing its first draft.

What slop looks like in the copy

• Words that could describe anyone. “Innovative solutions”, “tailored to your needs”, “take your business to the next level”. If a competitor could paste the sentence onto their site unchanged, it says nothing about you.
• Everything comes in threes. Three benefits, three adjectives, three short sentences for drama. Real writing has an uneven rhythm.
• The same move over and over. “It’s not just a website, it’s an experience.” Once is a style. On every section it’s a tell.
• Numbers with no source. “Boost conversions by 300%.” Whose conversions? Measured how? Invented figures are the fastest way to lose a careful reader.
• No opinion. Slop is always balanced and never commits. People hire people who have a point of view.

What slop looks like in the design

• A big gradient hero, a headline in the middle, two buttons, then a grid of three icon cards. It’s the default layout of half the internet.
• Stock illustrations of smiling people at laptops, or abstract 3D shapes that mean nothing.
• Every section the same height, the same spacing and the same weight, so nothing stands out because nothing was chosen.
• Testimonials with a first name, a stock photo and a line nobody would say out loud.

Why it matters beyond taste

Visitors decide quickly whether a site is worth their time, and generic pages give them a reason to leave. Search engines are moving in the same direction. Google’s own guidance asks whether content shows first hand experience and was made to help people rather than to rank, and its spam policies name mass produced pages as a problem (Google: creating helpful content, Google: scaled content abuse). AI answers pick sources the same way: they quote pages that say something specific.

How to keep it off your site

Start from your material, not from a blank prompt

Feed the tool your real emails, customer questions, notes from calls, reviews and photos of your work. The more of you goes in, the less average comes out.

Edit for specifics

Go through each paragraph and ask: could only I have written this? Replace every general claim with a specific one. “Fast delivery” becomes how long your last few projects actually took, from first call to launch. If you can’t make a claim specific, cut it.

Check every fact

Every number, name, date and promise. If you can’t point to where it came from, it doesn’t go on the page.

Read it out loud

If you wouldn’t say it to a client across a table, don’t publish it. This one test removes most of the problem.

Make design decisions on purpose

Decide what the most important thing on each page is, and make it look more important than everything else. Use your own photos, even simple ones, over stock. Break the default layout where your content asks for it.

Let one person own the result

The AI drafts. A person decides. Every page on this site, including this article, is written with AI help and then rewritten and approved by me, and the note at the bottom says so.

If your site already reads like this and you’re not sure where to start, a UX and content review is the quickest way to find the pages that need a person most.