It’s not just your social media feeds drowning in AI slop, workplaces are at risk too. An article this week in the Harvard Business Review, AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity (Sept 2025), draws on research from BetterUp Labs in collaboration Stanford’s Social Media Lab. Their findings reveal just how common Workslop has become, and why it’s quietly draining productivity, trust, and patience inside companies.
TL;DR
- Workslop is AI work that looks polished but adds no value, and creates frustration for others.
- It wastes time, erodes trust, and damages collaboration with your colleagues.
- AI can help teams work faster and think more creatively, but only if humans actively guide and verify the outputs.
- In BetterUp’s report, 40% of employees said they’d been “Workslopped” in just the past month.
The Irony of “Writing” About Workslop… With AI
Let’s start with a confession: this post was assembled with the help of AI (I bow my head in shame). Yes, I use AI, it would be weird if I didn’t, after all Twenty44 helps companies find practical use cases for AI. Being able to leverage AI to accelerate and scale content creation is one of those use cases.
So, what is Workslop? Is this article Workslop? Have you been Workslopped recently? Have you workslopped a colleague?
BetterUp Labs define Workslop as AI-generated work that looks legitimate but forces others to spend time redoing, reinterpreting, or correcting errors. Workslop isn’t just sloppy work, it’s inefficiency that slows everyone down.
Their research found 40% of employees report being “Workslopped” in just the past month, with each instance costing colleagues nearly two hours of rework. That may not sound like much, until it’s you cleaning up someone’s work three or four times a week, all while muttering under your breath, “I could have saved time by doing this myself.”
No wonder so many companies struggle to see real ROI from AI.
Why Workslop Happens, and Why It Really Hurts
As AI assistants and tools become more embedded in the workplace, employees are producing more output at greater speed. Sometimes that’s a win. But without proper care, it just shifts the burden on to the next person in the workflow.
The problem isn’t just about wasting time, it’s actually damaging workplace relationships. Here’s what the research reveals:
Hidden costs: Recipients of Workslop spend valuable hours clarifying or fixing problems, multiplying costs across teams. For larger organizations, this can add up to millions of dollars in lost productivity.
Damage to credibility: BetterUp’s research shows your colleagues don’t just get annoyed by Workslop, they start to see the sender as less capable and reliable. Over half (54%) see Workslop senders as less creative, 50% as less capable, 49% as less reliable, and 42% as less trustworthy. One-third are less likely to want to work with that person again.
Emotional toll: When people receive Workslop, 53% report feeling annoyed, 38% confused, and 22% felt offended. And it flows in all directions. While 40% happens between peers, 18% flows up from direct reports to managers, and 16% flows down from management to teams.
Workslop isn’t about AI itself. It’s about how we use it. When employees treat AI as a shortcut instead of a collaborator, quality suffers, and so do workplace relationships.
Stop! How Can You Tell If You’re About to Send Workslop?
Leaders can set some guardrails, but at the end of the day, avoiding Workslop comes down to individual choices. Before you hit “send,” ask yourself:
Does it add value, or just fill space?
If it doesn’t move the task forward, it’s filler.
Is the context clear?
Managers in the BetterUp study reported losing hours clarifying AI-written emails. If others will have to guess your intent, it’s not ready, do not hit send.
Have I verified accuracy?
KPMG’s 2025 global study found over 50% of employees didn’t critically evaluate the output of AI, and 42% sometimes relied on AI output without verifying its accuracy. <— In a meta-ish twist, the draft AI produced misquoted this stat, and I had to verify it myself, exactly the kind of extra work Workslop creates.
Would I put my name on it without AI?
Colleagues downgrade senders of Workslop. If you’re not ready to back it up, don’t send it forward.
Does it respect my team’s time?
Remember that the hidden costs of lost productivity. If you’re pushing the burden onto others, you’re wasting others’ time, not just your own.
Can I explain my work, what was my contribution?
Transparency matters. If you can’t clarify what you did versus what AI generated, the work isn’t ready.
If you can’t say “yes” to these, tap the brakes, the work probably isn’t ready to share, and sending it along risks turning you into the company “Workslopper”.
From Workslop to Real ROI
AI isn’t a villain. In fact, studies show it can boost productivity, creativity, and collaboration, but only when used with purpose. One field experiment, “Collaborating with AI Agents: Field Experiments on Teamwork, Productivity, and Performance”, (Ju & Aral, 2025) found that human AI teams that guided the AI communicated more and performed better than human-only teams. The catch? They put in the effort to collaborate with AI instead of outsourcing thinking to it.
That’s the key: AI works when it’s treated as a partner, not a shortcut.
For leaders, this means moving beyond those headline-grabbing ‘use AI everywhere’ mandates. It means building norms, policies, and training that encourage employees to guide AI with intention, not just hand tasks off to it. Here at Twenty44, our AI/44 Assessment helps organizations understand their team’s knowledge, confidence, and barriers with AI. Those insights guide leaders in building practical roadmaps, so teams can adopt AI where it adds real value, not just more activity.
References:
- Harvard Business Review: AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity (September 2025) by Kate Niederhoffer, Gabriella Rosen Kellerman, Angela Lee, Alex Liebscher, Kristina Rapuano and Jeffrey T. Hancock
- BetterUp Labs (2025). Workslop is the new busywork. And it’s costing millions.
- Collaborating with AI Agents: Field Experiments on Teamwork, Productivity, and Performance (March, 2025) by Harang Ju, Sinan Aral
Randy Matheson
Randy Matheson is an innovation strategist with a 25+ year proven track record of turning ideas into digital products. He specializes in working with Generative AI for content creation and using cutting-edge AI tools to create and interact with virtual audiences. He operates out Hamilton, Ontario where he resides with his partner and two large dogs.