Ecommerce Marketing amid AI ‘Slop’

“Slop” is the word of the year for 2025, according to the human editors of the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

“We define slop as ‘digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.’ All that stuff dumped on our screens, captured in just four letters: the English language came through again,” the editors wrote.

The folks at Merriam-Webster may have reacted to technology that likely challenges their livelihood. Yet while it’s a problem for ecommerce marketing, mediocre content is not new.

Generative AI did not introduce slop so much as streamline its speed and quantity. Recognizing this distinction is key to creating content that delivers a return on investment.

Before AI

Long before genAI, content mills mastered the art of large-scale, low-cost production.

These word-factories relied on vast pools of underpaid writers, rigid templates, and keyword-driven briefs to publish thousands of articles quickly. Editorial oversight was minimal. Speed mattered more than accuracy, originality, or even usefulness.

For ecommerce brands, this often meant competing for search engine rankings against threadbare “best of” lists, affiliate bait, and generic product pages written by folks who had never seen the products they described. These pages existed to capture search traffic, not to help shoppers.

So long as search engines rewarded keywords and recency, low-cost content arbitrage was profitable, despite frequent algorithm updates aimed at combating it.

AI Amplification

Generative AI dramatically lowers the cost of content. What once required thousands of writers now consists of simple prompts, scripts, and publishing pipelines.

AI agents replaced underpaid writers.

The output even looks better. AI-generated content is readable, structured, and confident. It rarely reads like the keyword-stuffed search-engine bait of the early 2010s. That polish makes it hard for shoppers to distinguish genuine expertise from synthetic fluency.

Unfortunately, AI content can be wrong. Large language models hallucinate and make errors in logic. They are biased.

Compared to human-made versions, AI content is often clearer yet more fallible. The difference is not so much the quality of the prose as its relative trustworthiness and the thinking behind it.

Using AI

Nonetheless, marketers still aim to attract, engage, and retain readers. The need is not to avoid AI-generated content, but rather to use it well.

AI should not replace human thinking, but instead research, clarify, and facilitate it, such as:

• Research and first drafts. AI can research and generate a starting point, not a final asset. Humans — merchandisers, marketers, experts — shape the final output through experience, nuance, and learning.

• Clarity and purpose. Is the goal education, engagement, or conversion? AI performs best when guided by intent rather than vague prompts.

• Facilitate human context and insights. This includes common customer questions, product comparisons, usage notes, and merchandising expertise. No model can scrape direct human knowledge.

For example, an ecommerce team might use AI to draft a buying guide for cordless drills. A product manager could then refine it based on real-world catalog constraints, such as in-stock models, warranty differences, and customer feedback. The AI provides structure and speed. The human provides judgment.

The same approach applies to product descriptions, FAQs, and category pages. AI accelerates first drafts and variations, but humans ensure claims are accurate, benefits are correct, and language aligns with brand voice. This hybrid workflow produces content that scales without sacrificing trust.

It’s not slop. It’s AI output guided by humans. And it might be the best way to create marketing content.

Not All Slop

The web survived keyword stuffing, article spinning, and content farms. It will survive AI slop, too.

The lesson is clear for ecommerce marketers: AI changes the tools, not the fundamentals. Genuine content that helps shoppers decide will outperform the mass-produced alternative.

The winners will be the most useful marketers, not the loudest.