How to Handle AI Slop in Your Team: 5 Steps

Why AI Slop Is Taking Over Your Feed

LinkedIn didn’t introduce a “report AI slop” button just for fun. The feature exists because the platform has become flooded with unhelpful, unoriginal AI-generated posts, and users are pushing back. The problem has spilled into everyday work life as well: 66% of professionals now spend at least six hours each week fixing the generic syntax, predictable structures, and hollow tone that define AI-generated workslop.

Recognition of AI slop is becoming second nature. The telltale signs are everywhere: the em dashes (unfortunately, for those of us who genuinely appreciate them), the predictable formatting, the rhetorical questions, and the overused word “quietly.”

While AI offers a 23% average productivity boost by handling tasks like summarizing meeting notes, it has simultaneously triggered a new workplace epidemic. The result? Content that lacks the depth, experience, and perspective that only a human can bring.

What to Do When Your Colleagues Start Sounding Like Bots

You may have noticed that the work coming from your team lately feels disconnected from their actual skills and real-world experience. It’s a disorienting shift, and because this territory is so new, most people don’t know how to respond. If it feels like you’re working in a room full of robots who used to be people, here’s a practical starting point.

1. Make AI Use a Normal Topic of Conversation

Executives frequently roll out company-wide policies about data security and legal compliance, but they rarely address how individual teams should actually integrate AI into their daily workflows. That silence leaves a significant grey area at the team level, where people are left to figure it out on their own.

A productive step is to spearhead a meeting specifically focused on AI usage at work. Set the tone upfront by framing it as a shared learning opportunity, not a performance review. Encourage team members to talk openly about how they use AI, what they’ve learned from it, and what they deliberately avoid. This approach creates a safe space where no one feels singled out or defensive.

To get the conversation moving, consider asking these questions:

• When do you use AI in your workflow?
• What types of tasks is AI appropriate for?
• What work should never be AI-generated?
• Should AI use be disclosed, and how should minor use cases be handled?

Your team’s opinions may differ, but that’s exactly the point. This conversation helps you identify where your approaches overlap, where they diverge, and what work is genuinely being produced by AI versus by people.

2. Create Team Guidelines for AI Use

Once everyone is aligned on the broader perspective, the next step is to establish clear boundaries. Schedule a dedicated meeting focused on developing a set of AI-related policies and procedures that the entire team will be expected to follow.

It’s worth remembering that most people aren’t deliberately overusing AI. Often, they simply don’t recognize that instead of streamlining their workload, AI is actually replacing their core responsibilities. They may also be unaware that the over-reliance is obvious to their colleagues and managers.

By establishing team norms, you set a clear standard without needing to confront any individual directly. This approach shifts the focus from a personal critique to a collective team policy, which feels less like an attack and more like a shared commitment.

To get started, consider what your team’s specific boundaries should be. Here are some examples of practical AI guidelines:

• Prohibited for sensitive tasks: No AI usage for developing points for performance reviews or preparing for sensitive conversations.
• Prohibited for feedback: No AI usage for providing feedback on team deliverables.
• Permitted with review: AI is acceptable for copyediting writing-heavy deliverables, provided the AI-generated version is not pasted verbatim. Each suggestion must be individually reviewed and approved before being incorporated.
• Permitted for summaries: AI is acceptable for summarizing meetings and sharing next steps after calls.

Setting a policy now, before AI usage becomes even more deeply embedded in daily workflows, will help catch these habits early and prevent them from becoming entrenched.

3. Document and Formalize the Agreement

After you’ve brainstormed and agreed upon your team’s AI usage guidelines, it’s time to make them official. Print the finalized document and have every team member sign it. This act signals a clear intent to adhere to the established norms and creates a binding agreement between the team, rather than just a casual suggestion.

Having everyone sign off does more than just formalize the policy; it fosters genuine accountability. The act of committing in writing leads to higher levels of follow-through and personal responsibility, making it more likely that the guidelines will be respected.

4. Establish a Mechanism for Reporting AI Misuse

An agreement on paper doesn’t automatically guarantee adherence. To keep the conversation active, you need to establish ongoing mechanisms for discussing AI use.

Start by creating an anonymous form for reporting instances of AI usage that may be excessive or problematic. This isn’t intended as a venue for team members to “tell on” their colleagues. Instead, it’s a safe place to raise legitimate concerns that AI-generated work is repeatedly being produced. The goal is to ensure the worker involved receives the support they need. Perhaps they are overwhelmed with their workload and AI is the only way they can get through their to-do list. Or maybe they need one-on-one guidance on how to work effectively with AI, rather than letting AI work for them. In either case, they need support, and the form is a tool to help them get it.

You can also create a recurring segment in team meetings where colleagues share case studies of times when AI helped or hurt more than anticipated. Use this time to discuss what went well, what didn’t, and what the team should know going forward, so that everyone can learn from the collective experience.

5. Revisit regularly

Because AI capabilities and adoption are advancing at an unprecedented pace, reviewing your policy annually—or even every two years—will leave your team trailing behind the technology. Staying current requires a more frequent commitment.

Add a standing AI policy review to your team meeting agenda each quarter. This doesn’t need to be a lengthy discussion; a focused 15-minute check-in is enough to assess:

• What new AI developments have been released within your company
• How your team is currently using AI in their workflows
• What your team believes AI should and should not be used for

Make updates to the policy as needed, and have everyone re-sign to renew their commitment to the agreed-upon guidelines.

What if Your Boss is Producing AI Slop?

Receiving low-quality AI-generated work from a manager is more common than you might expect. In fact, more than half of employees have received this kind of work from their own boss, and 85% report a resulting loss of faith in leadership. According to Zety’s Workslop Trust report, “when low-quality AI work comes from those in charge, it can ripple across teams, signaling unclear expectations and weakening confidence in decision-making.”

Navigating this situation requires care, but it’s an important conversation to have. To properly support your professional development, you need direct feedback from your manager, not a generic output from their preferred AI tool.

Avoid explicitly asking them to stop using AI. Instead, try these approaches:

• "I really value the specific feedback you usually give me. Lately the feedback has felt more general, and I'm finding it harder to know exactly what to improve."
• "I'd love more examples from your own perspective and personal experience."
• "Could we spend a few minutes talking through this in person instead?"

The underlying message is that you want their insight and experience guiding your work, not a generic response. This approach respectfully encourages them to review your work personally without a direct confrontation.

In the AI era, successful workplaces won’t be those that simply feed everything into AI and hope for the best. They will be the ones that understand the difference between tasks AI should handle and those it shouldn’t. After all, AI is designed to give workers more time to think—not to replace thinking altogether.