Your Ads Are Funding AI Garbage. Here's How to Stop
AI slop is everywhere. From the cat video my mom sends me every second day on Whatsapp to the Youtube thumbnail that looks interesting enough to click and instantly regret.
AI slop is the industry term for low-quality, mass-produced AI content designed to farm attention. Merriam-Webster named "slop" its 2025 Word of the Year in December. Since then, platforms have promised clean-ups. Watching those efforts feels like dusting a terrace during a sandstorm.
Why should you care?
Because the scale is not trivial. Independent research cited by The Guardian shows that >20% of videos recommended to new YouTube users are AI slop. AI-only content channels already generate 60+ billion views per year, largely monetized through advertising. Cheap content. Massive reach. And just before you realise it’s nonsense, the pre-roll is already playing.
This is not primarily a consumer problem. It is an advertiser problem.
AI slop inflates impressions without creating quality attention. It distorts performance metrics and slowly erodes brand trust. Algorithms optimise for volume and novelty, not meaning or quality. Your ad can be technically brand safe and still be viewed before/during content people find childish, pointless, or disposable.
And we as marketers know something is off. According to IAB, over 70% of marketers report AI-related brand risks, from misleading environments to off-brand adjacency. Yet <35% have governance or quality controls in place.
We are moving fast. We are deciding slowly.
What should brands do now?
1. Upgrade brand safety to brand suitability - avoiding hate or explicit content is table stakes. The real risk in 2026 is adjacency to meaningless, disposable productions that erode trust. Context quality drives effectiveness. Where your ad appears says something about what your brand stands for.
2. Treat context quality as a media choice, not a platform default - platforms optimise for volume and novelty, not meaning. If advertisers do not explicitly restrict acceptable environments, algorithms will optimise toward slop. Premium, curated placements are a deliberate strategy to protect brand meaning.
3. Clean the signals that feed the measurement. - AI slop pollutes data. Clicks, views, and completion rates are increasingly driven by low-value content loops. Feeding those signals back into optimisation systems makes future decisions worse. Audit which signals feed measurement models, and question their provenance.
If you do not actively choose media quality, the algorithm will choose slop for you.