Spend ten minutes on LinkedIn or in your inbox and you will see it. Posts that open with a dramatic one-liner, lists of three adjectives, and articles that say a lot without saying anything. People have a name for it now, AI slop, and they have learned to scroll past it.
That is bad news for brands producing it at volume. For smaller businesses with real expertise, it is an opening, because sounding like a person has become rare enough to stand out.
What readers are tired of
Readers can rarely tell you exactly why a piece feels machine-made, but they notice. The giveaways are generic openings, advice that would fit any industry, no examples, no opinion and no sign that the writer has done the work they are writing about. Several commentators on the Gulf market, including AGBI's Austyn Allison, have pointed to the same appetite for cheap content across the region.
What still works
The fix is not to avoid tools. It is to make sure every piece carries something only you could have written.
- A specific opinion, including ones your competitors would disagree with.
- Details from your own work, such as the questions clients ask or the mistakes you see most often.
- Plain language, the way you would explain it to a client across the table.
- Fewer pieces, each one useful enough that someone would forward it.
Use AI as an assistant, not an author
AI tools are good at research, outlines, summaries and catching mistakes. They are poor at having a point of view, because they average out everything they have read. Use them for the parts that are labour, and keep the thinking, the examples and the final words human.
A good test before publishing is to remove your company name and ask whether a reader could tell who wrote it. If any competitor could have published the same piece, it is not doing much for you.
It applies to sales messages too
The same rule holds for outreach, proposals and even WhatsApp replies. A short, specific message from a person who clearly looked at the buyer's business beats a polished template every time. In a market full of polish, specific is what gets noticed.
