We’ve all seen it. Bland, formulaic copy that reeks of a household-name LLM, all over your LinkedIn feed. The experience is familiar. You read a CEO’s LinkedIn post, only to scroll down and see three more posts that look just like it. The same turns of phrase, the same tone, even down to the same humorless “jokes”. If you can recognize this, well, you’re not alone. LinkedIn’s problem with AI slop became so bad, in fact, that the platform launched a “seems like AI slop” button on July 30th. It was used more than a million times in just the first two weeks.
And they had good reason: 41% of long-form LinkedIn posts from April to June 2026 were fully AI-generated, according to data from Pangram. Those who just took their posts from generic LLMs clearly thought they had the answer. Input a generic prompt, highlight whatever was spat out, copy and paste onto their account. But, and this will come as no surprise, it doesn’t work. Those using generic LLMs to write their LinkedIn posts are actually seeing around 40% fewer views than they did before.
Posts written by generic AI just aren’t working. If anything, they’re turning readers away from the pages and people they’re supposed to care about. So, what’s the solution? It’s not, as you might immediately think, to turn away from AI altogether. We can’t ignore the fact that AI now plays an important role in the content demands of today’s marketing landscape. Instead, the answer lies in tackling “slop”.
The demands on marketers, and anyone creating content for brands, exponentially increase year over year. More channels and more forms of content keep emerging, and algorithms consistently reward those who post regularly. Writing social posts went from something done occasionally to something mandatory. Business leaders became aware that to build a brand, they needed to post regularly on the company’s account and their own. In response, everyone reached for the same tools, which meant everyone ended up sounding exactly the same.
Think of it this way: if the CEO of an S&P 500 company uses the same basic ChatGPT tools as your local mom-and-pop, these two drastically different businesses are essentially sharing the exact same copywriter. Even 10 years ago that would have been inconceivable.
The appeal of tools like ChatGPT was that they rapidly produced serviceable copy in order to fulfill the demand for content. But in plugging that gap, they created several more. The fact is, those who opt for slop forget something fundamental: posts are meant to communicate something. Turning to a generic AI tool with a vague prompt to post for the sake of posting is, by design, ensuring that your final post will have nothing interesting to say.
Slop is obvious. There are tells that clue readers in to the fact that someone has just unthinkingly copy-pasted something from an LLM. I’m sure they’re familiar to anyone reading this: the liberal use of the em-dash; rhetorical question openers; short, declarative closing sentences; and endless lists of three. These linguistic devices are what we talk about when we’re discussing AI fatigue. Generic, predictable language that we see over, and over, and over. In 2023 you might have been able to get away with it. But in 2026, it’s recognizable instantly.
Finding what actually works is a balancing act. First, zero in on your voice. Find posts you have written that sound like you, with the right energy and tone. Look at which posts did particularly well and drove engagement; LinkedIn analytics can be an excellent tool for this. Once you’ve got a basic set of parameters, then you can move on to the most important part of all: making sure you’ve got something to say. LLMs, by design, pick out the most common phrases and takes. They’re built to generate mediocre, middle-of-the-road opinions and copy. So find the take that makes you stand out.
There’s nothing wrong with using an AI tool to write your LinkedIn posts; you just need to be sure that they sound like you, and that there’s some real substance in there. Look for data, stats, figures, stories, and anecdotes that only you own. Offer people something new.
I’ve spent a decade teaching AI to write marketing emails, push notifications and texts that drive conversions, not just engagement. It works because the messages focus on what customers actually care about, which in turn delivers what marketers care about. The same principle applies to LinkedIn. Likes and comments are the engagement, and the conversion comes from readers who remember and trust you. Slop only prioritizes the first part, and entirely forgets the second.
Then, take a critical look at the finished product. This might feel like it’s taking up valuable time, but taking even five minutes to read the post out loud, cutting any sentence you wouldn’t say to a colleague, can make all the difference between a dozen eyes on your post and a thousand. The sheer amount of AI slop on sites like LinkedIn, which maintains steady user adoption year on year, means that a distinct voice is only becoming more valuable. In a sea of AI slop, it’s more important, and perhaps easier, than ever to stand out from the crowd.
The answer to AI slop isn’t in abandoning AI, nor is it as simple as vowing to never touch an em-dash again. It’s in abandoning slop: unthinking, generic slop that tells us nothing, and does nothing for us. You’re not writing to beat a detector, or to ensure that no one flags your post. You’re writing to communicate something. To inform, to entertain, to share, to connect. The truth is, there was always slop out there; LLMs just made it easier to post.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
The post I’ve spent a decade teaching AI to write. Here’s why your slop posts are ruining your LinkedIn appeared first on Fortune.
