Creating Original Content That Says “No” to AI Slop

How do you stand out in a sea of sameness? How can you create content that isn’t slop and actually connects with other humans? 

Let’s take a look at the issue of AI slop, discuss how slop isn’t a new phenomenon, and the process we, as a small digital marketing agency, have implemented to create original content for our partners.

What is AI slop?

“Slop” was Merriam-Webster’s 2025 word of the year. Their dictionary definition of the word is, “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” Another way to think about the meaning of AI slop is content made fast, at scale, with little regard for whether it’s actually good.

You’ve already seen it. Listicles that repeat the same five tips as every other listicle, “ultimate guides” that are just summaries of other guides, the telltale AI phrasing that shows up everywhere (“it’s not just X, it’s Y”). You don’t need me to explain slop to you. We’ve all been swimming in it.

Turns out, though, we’ve seen this before. Slop isn’t a new phenomenon, and it existed long before OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public.

AI Is The New Content Farming

Before AI there were content farms, doing the same thing on a smaller scale: producing massive amounts of shallow content and flooding the internet with it. What we now call AI generated slop is really just that same playbook, running faster and cheaper.

A 2009 article published in Wired profiled Demand Media, a company that used search-trend algorithms to identify exactly what questions people were typing into Google, then paid freelance writers a few dollars per article to churn out content answering them at scale. It became the blueprint for what we now call the content farm: creating pieces based on search demand rather than genuine expertise or purpose. By the following summer, according to Demand’s CEO, the company would be publishing one million pieces of content per month. Sounds familiar.

And to be clear, this isn’t just an AI problem. A content writer reading a handful of articles and repackaging what they say is doing the same thing, just slower and by hand instead of by prompt. Swapping out the tool doesn’t solve the real issue.

Related: What People Are Getting Wrong About AI in Content Marketing

What even is original content?

Most informational topics only have a handful of truly authoritative sources to cite. So what’s left to say that’s new? The answer is perspective. I It’s no longer enough to simply repeat the same information that’s already out there. You need to give your unique take on it. 

Personal perspective is what a freelance, offshore content farm writer couldn’t replicate in 2009, and it’s what an AI can’t replicate in 2026. 

Google’s been fighting this exact problem since 2003, most notably with the 2011 Panda update, which rewarded sites that said something no one else had and penalized mass-produced, low-effort content. That’s the same wall today’s AI slop runs into. It can repeat what’s already out there. It can’t offer something no one else has said.

Creating helpful content, by Google’s standards, comes down to what everyone working in digital marketing and SEO already knows: real authority and experience (we’re all familiar with E-E-A-T, right?) and actually helping the reader achieve their goal. It’s the “experience” part I think too many people forget. At Intuitive Digital, that firsthand experience is what we’ve been working to bring into our partners’ content.

Why Lived Experiences Connect With People

AI can synthesize a thousand people’s stories into something that sounds like a story, but it’ll still be generic. In combining so many people’s experiences it’ll fail to recreate a truly unique experience. It never lived your life and can’t tell your story. 

I’ve seen this play out firsthand while creating content for our partners. Here are a couple of examples:

Getting an Attorney’s Perspective

While writing a piece on what to do while waiting for an SSDI decision, an attorney on our partner’s team shared insights I hadn’t come across anywhere else, even after reading through blog after blog on the topic. That firsthand knowledge is what made the piece feel real instead of recycled.

Hearing From a Flight School Operator

I recently jumped on a quick call with a representative from a flight school we work with to talk about adults changing careers to become pilots. They walked me through how unrealistic a lot of the generic advice online actually is, and helped me set honest expectations around how much time and commitment flight training really takes. They also provided me with a testimonial from a student currently training to fly helicopters as an adult. Their testimonial captured what that experience actually feels like. And that’s something AI can’t offer for the simple reason that it can’t sit in a cockpit. 

We want to hear from other people who have already lived what we’re going through. We value that insight. It’s why Google invested so heavily in Reddit and serves up threads from the site to search queries. People want to hear from people. And until AI develops consciousness it won’t have its own lived experience, and even then it won’t have yours.

The way we’ve been bringing those lived experiences to the content we create is simple: we ask questions. 

How We Create Original Content For Our Partners

To incorporate real opinions and stories from our partners is as easy as asking them to share their opinions and stories. Yes, it takes more work from them upfront, but it’s a small lift for a big return on creating content that isn’t generic and couldn’t be generated by AI. Which, funnily enough, also makes for content that AI loves to cite.

1. Research the topic first.

Once a relevant topic is approved, I do a little preliminary research to familiarize myself with it before reaching out to anyone.

2. Draft an initial narrative and structure.

I think about where firsthand experience would be most valuable for readers. Not every section needs it, but the best ones usually do.

3. Generate interview questions.

This is a great place to use AI. A simple prompt gives me a solid list to work with:

I’m writing a blog post about [topic]. Give me a list of questions I can ask [title/profession] that will uncover their firsthand experience, expert opinions, and stories about [topic].

4. Narrow the list down.

I pick the questions that will lead to genuinely unique answers, not generic ones.

5. Send the questions to our partner.

I keep the list short, five or six questions max, so it’s easy for a busy partner to actually sit down and answer. Or, if they prefer, jump on a quick call.

6. Build the piece around their answers.

Their responses give me a much better starting point than any AI-generated draft ever could. Sometimes their words go straight into the piece as a quote. Other times, I take what they’ve shared and build a whole section around it, using their experience as the backbone and filling in the surrounding context myself. Either way, their voice is what shapes the story, not mine. That’s what makes the final piece something only they could have told, and something worth reading.

Adapting This For Your Own Content

If you’re producing content on behalf of a client or an expert in your business, you can follow this same approach. Research the topic, draft your outline, generate a short list of questions, and let their answers shape the piece.

If you’re creating content for your own business, things get a little easier, since you’re the expert. You don’t need a list of interview questions. Instead, think about what unique perspectives or experiences you could bring to the topic. What have you seen that a generic article wouldn’t know? What would you tell a customer standing in front of you that you’d never find in a top ten list? Start there, and build the piece around it the same way you’d build it around a client’s answers.

Write For Your People

Sharing local stories may not drive massive traffic, and that’s fine for most of our partners. They’re small, local businesses looking for customers in their service area, not readers on the other side of the country. For them, chasing broad traffic would just be chasing vanity metrics. It’s the local, specific, human stories that actually convert people nearby.

And that’s really the answer to the question we started with. The internet isn’t short on content anymore. But as the amount of content rises exponentially, less of it is worth reading. You can’t out-write AI in terms of volume, and you shouldn’t try. What you can do is show up as the one voice that actually knows what it’s talking about, in your specific corner of the world, for your specific people. That’s something only you can write.

Ready to tell your story instead of repeating everyone else’s? Let’s figure it out together. Contact us today to learn about how we can help with content marketing. 

FAQ

What is AI slop?

AI slop is content of low quality that’s produced quickly and at scale, usually with little to no human input, editing, or original thought behind it. It’s built to fill a page or rank for a keyword, not to actually help the person reading it.

What is original content?

Original content is content that offers a perspective no one else has: your own experience, opinion, or story. Since most topics only have a handful of truly authoritative sources, originality is giving new perspectives.

Does using AI automatically mean my content is slop?

No. AI is a tool, and like most tools, what matters is how you use it. In Google’s own words, “Generative AI tools may be used for high quality and low quality content creation.” Using AI to organize your research or draft interview questions, for example, doesn’t lead to slop. Slop is publishing something with no real human perspective behind it, whether AI wrote it or you did.

Does not using AI automatically mean my content is high quality?

No. If you’re skipping AI but still just reading a handful of articles and repackaging what they already say, you’re doing the same thing content farms did, just slower and by hand. The perspective behind the writing is what makes content original, not how it’s written.

Will Google penalize AI-generated content?

Google has said it doesn’t penalize content simply for being AI-assisted. What it does penalize is low-quality, unhelpful content, regardless of how it was made. That’s the same standard it’s held since updates like Panda: reward genuinely useful content, penalize the shallow stuff.

How can I make sure my content isn’t AI slop?

The simplest fix is to bring in a real person’s story or opinion, then build the content around it. Ask your subject matter expert or partner a few good questions, and let their answers shape the piece instead of starting from a generic draft.

What’s the difference between AI slop and old-school content farming?

Not much, honestly. Content farms produced shallow, keyword-driven content at scale using cheap freelance writers. AI slop does the same thing, just faster and cheaper. The underlying problem, content with no real perspective behind it, hasn’t changed.