Researchers at BetterUp Labs, in partnership with Stanford’s Social Media Lab, have introduced a new term for low-quality, AI-generated output: “workslop.”
As described in the Harvard Business Review, workslop refers to “AI-generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task.”
According to the researchers, workslop may help explain why 95% of organisations that have adopted AI report seeing little to no return on their investment. Instead of saving time, poorly generated content often creates more work—because it’s incomplete, unhelpful, or missing critical context.
They warn that the actual danger of workslop is its ripple effect: it shifts the burden onto colleagues, forcing them to interpret, fix, or completely redo what should have been appropriately completed in the first place.
An ongoing survey of 1,150 full-time U.S. employees revealed that 40% had received increased workloads in just the past month, underscoring the widespread nature of the issue.
To combat this, the researchers recommend that workplace leaders:
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Model intentional AI use by applying it with a clear purpose and context.
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Set guardrails that define acceptable AI practices within their teams.
In short, the best defence against work slop is thoughtful, responsible AI use—because when misused, AI doesn’t eliminate busywork, it just repackages it and hands it to someone else.
