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What is workslop? Definition and the hidden cost of AI at work
Workslop is AI-generated work content that looks like good work but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance the task. The term was coined in September 2025 in Harvard Business Review by researchers from BetterUp Labs and the Stanford Social Media Lab; its cost falls on the person who receives the document and has to fix or redo it.
The word combines work and slop, the English term for low-quality AI content produced in bulk. It appeared on September 22, 2025 in a Harvard Business Review article by Kate Niederhoffer (BetterUp), Jeffrey T. Hancock (Stanford Social Media Lab) and four co-authors. Starting point: AI use at work has doubled since 2023, yet an MIT Media Lab report cited by the authors found that 95% of organisations see no measurable return on their investment. Workslop is one possible explanation. It takes the form of emails, memos, slide decks or code: well presented, but hollow, incomplete or off-target. According to the BetterUp and Stanford survey (September 2025, 1,004 full-time US desk workers), 40% of employees say they received some in the last month, and they estimate that 15.4% of the work they receive qualifies. Each instance takes an average of 1 hour 51 minutes to deal with. The authors put this invisible tax at $186 per employee per month, or over $9 million a year for a 10,000-person organisation. The cost is also relational: about half of recipients see the sender as less creative, capable and reliable, and 42% as less trustworthy. Workslop mostly flows between peers (40%), but also up to managers (19%) and down from leaders to their teams (16%).
Concrete example
Illustrative case: at a French services company with 300 employees, a project manager sends the executive committee an eight-page summary of a public tender, produced in a few minutes with an AI assistant. The memo is well structured. Yet it cites a scoring criterion absent from the tender rules and omits the deadline for submitting questions. The sales director spends half a day checking everything against the tender documents, then rewrites the memo. The time saved by the author was lost, and more, by his reader. The company then adopts a simple rule: any document prepared with AI and sent to someone else lists the verified sources and remains signed by its author, who answers for it.
Comparison
| Workslop | AI-augmented work | |
|---|---|---|
| Appearance | Polished, long, well structured | Polished, length suited to the need |
| Substance | Hollow, generic, sometimes wrong | Verified, grounded in the actual file |
| Who bears the effort | The recipient, who fixes or redoes it | The author, who reviews and checks before sending |
| Accountability | Diluted: “the AI wrote it” | Owned by the author |
| Effect on trust | The sender is seen as less reliable | Neutral or positive |
FAQ
What does workslop mean?
Workslop is a blend of work and slop (low-quality AI content). It refers to an AI-generated work document that looks polished but lacks the needed substance: an email, memo, deck or code that a colleague will have to fix or redo.
Where does the term workslop come from?
It was coined on September 22, 2025 in Harvard Business Review, in the article “AI-Generated Workslop Is Destroying Productivity”, by researchers from BetterUp Labs and the Stanford Social Media Lab, including Kate Niederhoffer and Jeffrey T. Hancock.
What are the figures from the workslop study?
A September 2025 survey of 1,004 US desk workers: 40% received workslop in the previous month, 15.4% of the work they receive qualifies in their estimate, 1 hour 51 minutes on average to deal with each instance, i.e. $186 per employee per month and over $9 million a year for 10,000 employees.
What is the difference between workslop and AI slop?
AI slop refers to low-quality AI content published in bulk, mostly online (articles, images, videos). Workslop is its workplace version: it circulates between colleagues, and its cost falls directly on the person who receives it and has to rework it.
How do you spot workslop?
Common signals: a long document with no decision or verifiable figure, generic wording, unsourced claims, details that do not match the actual file, and an author unable to explain their own content. The simplest test: ask the sender what they take away from it.
How can a company reduce workslop?
Three levers: an accountability rule (the author answers for what they send, AI or not), precise usage guidelines rather than an “AI everywhere” mandate, and training teams to review and verify. Measuring the time recipients spend helps make the cost visible.
See also
Further reading
AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity, Harvard Business Review, September 22, 2025
Sources
- AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity, Niederhoffer, Kellerman, Lee, Liebscher, Rapuano and Hancock, Harvard Business Review, September 22, 2025 (updated September 25). https://hbr.org/2025/09/ai-generated-workslop-is-destroying-productivity
- The hidden cost of AI “workslop” and how leaders can fix it (BetterUp and Stanford Social Media Lab survey, September 2025, 1,004 workers), BetterUp, September 29, 2025. https://www.betterup.com/blog/hidden-costs-workslop