The short version

Okay so. It’s 9:40 at night. You’re scrolling Facebook. And there it is…. another flyer.

The perfect latte in the perfect mug with the perfect saying on it. Sitting in front of the perfect wall hanging that says the OTHER perfect saying. Everything glowing like it was lit by angels. And then 94 words of text crammed on top of it in four different fonts.

You roll your eyes. “Ugh. AI slop.”

And then you go post your own. 😂

Everyone says they hate AI slop. Almost nobody realizes they’re part of it.

How to avoid AI slop (the short answer)

AI slop is a driver problem.

The tool did exactly what it was told. The person telling it didn’t know what to ask for, didn’t edit what came back, and hit post because it felt SO good to check something off the list.

I’m going to cover pictures, then writing, then the car thing. My AI for Pet Business Owners page has the whole system if you want the big view first.

What is AI slop, anyway?

It’s the nickname for low-effort AI content that floods your feed. Merriam-Webster made “slop” its 2025 Word of the Year, so yeah, this is officially a thing.

You know it when you see it. It all looks the same. I did a whole episode on why every pet business website sounds the same.

AI slop in pictures and flyers

Here’s what gives it away:

• Way too many words. A flyer should read like a billboard.
• Everything is perfect. Perfect mug. Perfect plant. Perfect light. Real life has a dog toy on the floor.
• Every inch is filled. Nowhere for your eye to rest.
• Props with sayings on them. Dude. Nobody owns that many inspirational mugs.
• It tries to say everything the business does in one image.

Here’s what most people were never taught. Pictures come in styles, and you have to ASK for one.

Editorial. Big, clean, empty space on purpose. That empty space is where your words go, so the words and the picture aren’t fighting.

Lifestyle or candid. Real moments. A little messy. Someone laughing mid-sentence. Nobody is posing.

Documentary. Looks like it was shot on a phone on a regular Tuesday. Imperfect on purpose. This is the one people trust.

Flat lay. Shot from directly above. Objects arranged on a table.

Studio or product. Plain backdrop, one subject, nothing else.

Portrait. One person, soft blurry background.

If you don’t pick a style, AI picks for you. And it picks “glossy and perfect and full.” Every time. That’s the slop look.

One sentence fixes most of it: tell it the style, tell it to leave empty space on one side, and tell it NO text in the image. Add your words yourself in Canva. Seven words, max.

AI slop in writing

Now the words. You can spot these from across the room:

• The canned contrast sentence. Repeated to death.
• The fake reveal that announces itself.
• The generic speed-of-life opener.
• The hand-holding transition.
• Boardroom buzzwords that say nothing.
• The broad audience hedge.
• The little fake question. “The result? Chaos.” “And honestly? That’s okay.”
• Everything in threes. Three adjectives. Three bullets. All the same length.
• Long dashes in every other sentence.
• A tidy little bow at the end that sums up what you just read.

AI can absolutely write for you. I use it every single day, whether that’s Claude in my pet business or whichever AI model fits the job. But when someone posts something that sounds NOTHING like them, that tells me one thing. They don’t know how to train it.

And you can’t train it by typing “write like me.” That’s like telling a stranger “cook like my grandma” and walking away.

You feed it your real emails. Your real posts. Your voice memos. The words you’d never say. And then you keep going, because it’s never finished. I still catch phrases in mine. I’m still adding to my list. I promise. I did a whole episode on how to make AI sound like you if you want the steps.

So is it the car or the driver?

If someone can't drive.... they collect tickets, hit mailboxes, blow tires.... do we blame the car?

No. We say that person needs lessons.

Right now a whole bunch of people got handed keys at the same time. No lessons. No test. Cars are banging into each other and crashing into walls. And everyone standing on the sidewalk is yelling "cars are TERRIBLE."

Meanwhile some people took the class. Their cars are fine. You don't even notice their cars, because nothing is on fire.

When someone knows what they're doing, you can't even tell they used AI. I have a whole episode on making AI sound authentic in your pet sitting business.

Two things can be true

Everything is so divided right now. AI is going to save us. AI is ruining everything. Pick a team.

I'm not picking.

You can be sick of AI slop AND know it can be done better. Both. Same time.

And maybe you have other objections to AI. Fair. That's a different conversation. But when it comes to AI slop, that's on the person who hit post.

And I get why it happens

The person posting that flyer is tired. Overworked. Seventeen things on the list. They made something in four minutes, it looked done, and they felt relief.

I've BEEN that person.

But a lot of you are starting to get agents now. An agent runs with whatever you hand it. If you can't drive the car yet, giving the keys to an agent just means more crashes, faster. I walk through how a pet sitter can clone themselves with AI the right way in its own episode.

How you actually get better at avoiding AI slop

Okay, most of what gets called AI slop comes down to one thing. Nobody taught you. Nobody sat you down and said here's how a prompt works, here's what a style word does, here's why the tool keeps guessing wrong. You were handed the keys with zero lessons, same as everybody else on the road right now. That's fixable. Nobody is behind.

Learning how to avoid AI slop starts with learning the tool better. That means naming a photo style instead of leaving it blank. It means training it on your voice with your real words, and knowing what to ask for before you hit enter.

And part of it is massaging it out. Like rolling pizza dough. The first pass is a lump. Doesn't look like anything yet. You roll it and stretch it, then you roll it again. You don't serve the lump. AI's first answer is the lump. Don't ever take the first thing AI gives you. Ever, ever, ever. Push it again. Ask it to cut the fluff. Ask it to sound more like you and less like everybody else's feed.

The fastest way through both of those is being around people who already know how to drive. You pick things up watching someone else's hands on the wheel that you'd never learn alone at 9:40 at night, tired, just trying to get a flyer posted.

So.... do better. I say that with love. It's not that hard. You just need to be around people who actually know how to drive.

And if you want the full driver's ed, that's the Jump Mastermind.

Stepping off my soapbox.

FAQ

What is AI slop?

Low-effort AI-generated content, images or writing, posted with little or no human editing. It looks generic and sounds like nobody.

Is AI slop AI's fault?

No. AI produces what it's asked for. Slop comes from vague instructions, zero training on your voice, and no editing before posting.

How do I make AI sound like me?

Give it real samples of your writing, a list of words and phrases you never use, and corrections every time it misses. Keep updating it. It's ongoing.

How do I make AI images not look like AI?

Name a photography style, ask for empty space, ask for imperfection, and keep text out of the image. Add your own short headline afterward.

What are examples of AI slop?

A flyer crammed with four fonts and a starburst discount badge. Buzzy filler words stacked in a caption that could belong to any business on the planet. A photo that's so glowing and glossy it doesn't look real. If it sounds like everybody else's feed, that's the tell.