You've seen it. The bizarrely enthusiastic email. The blog post that uses "leverage" and "delve" in every paragraph. The LinkedIn post that starts with "In today's rapidly evolving landscape." This is AI slop — and it's becoming instantly recognizable, which means it's actively hurting your credibility.
Why it happens. AI models gravitate toward the most common patterns in their training data. Business writing on the internet is full of corporate jargon and empty phrases. Without direction, AI reproduces them. It's giving you exactly what the average of the internet sounds like.
The fix is simple: tell it not to. Add instructions like: "Direct, conversational tone. No buzzwords. No phrases like 'in today's landscape.' Short sentences. Sound like a smart person talking, not a corporate brochure." Better yet, paste an example of your writing and say "Match this voice."
The editing rule. Every AI output should be edited — not just for accuracy, but for voice. Read it out loud. Would you actually say this to a client across a coffee table? If not, rewrite the artificial parts.
The litmus test. If someone could read your AI-assisted content and say "that was obviously written by AI," you haven't edited enough. The goal isn't to hide AI usage. It's to ensure the output meets the same quality bar as your best human-written work.