Last week, the Financial Times offered a timely warning to professionals using AI tools to draft their content. As Professor André Spicer put it, we are witnessing a new kind of “automated sludge” in the workplace: “work slop.”

The article echoed sentiments put ever so slightly less politely by actor, Emma Thompson, who spoke on Stephen Colbert about her “intense irritation” with tools which try to redraft her writing.

Unlike the bureaucratic bloat of endless meetings or long reports, this new digital sludge is faster and cheaper to produce, but far costlier to sift through. In other words, the problem isn’t just that AI can produce too much, but that it can produce too little meaning.

AI writes, humans communicate 

Admittedly, I am protective of a skill that yields immense personal satisfaction – like the pride when a journalist uses my phraseology verbatim, or a key message in an announcement is picked up in the bankers’ notes. Nevertheless, this is a genuine conviction that the most compelling writing always requires human skills: nuance, sentiment, emotion and humour.

Those are anchors that AI struggles to source in the lakes of data it relies on. Perhaps because there is so often a creative unpredictability when humans write well, with flair, passion and conviction.

The shaping of arguments, informed by cutting proof points and bold perspectives tailored to specific audiences, is a skill. It requires instinct, practice, and editors you trust, who add value by fine tuning the language and weighing the likely impact of words on the minds of readers.

Our clients, their investors, journalists, and the consumers of media all have one thing in common – they are people. Therefore, the ability to perceive, empathise and intuit will always be core to the role of communication.

Whilst AI has a role to play, it should assist, not supplement, human authors and editors.

Meaningful vs. more 

As communications professionals advising clients on landing key messaging with a wide range of modern stakeholders, we have been early adopter of the plethora of established and emerging AI tools.

We have integrated them into our work streams to help us to hone data, extract insights and sharpen our strategies – whether it is social listening at pace, or reviewing past earnings calls for listed clients to anticipate questions for future investor meetings or the movement of a share price.  We are also lucky to be part of Havas, an advertising giant, with colleagues across the globe experimenting with and building new AI tools.

With the growing sophistication of tools like ChatGPT and Copilot, that can churn out 1,000 words in under a minute, it could be easy to posit that writing could be outsourced to AI.  The rise of “work slop” suggests that’s a false economy.

When the corporate world is already flooded with content, the answer is not more output, it’s more meaning. Thoughtful, well-crafted, human-centric communication is what cuts through and sticks.

Instinct is essential  

Our story pitches are informed by the relationships we cultivate with journalists, allowing us to harness our instincts of what content will resonate with which individual (and importantly, their editor).

Journalists are wary of AI-generated pitches, especially when they come across as formulaic or insincere. Moreover, the tells of ChatGPT and Copilot (capitalised letters, Americanized spellings, abundance of em dashes) require more time for editing and call the credibility of the content into question. That’s why we don’t use AI for this.

Intuition is an innately human quality, which is invaluable for seizing a moment and using it to elevate a clients’ voice. For example, as human advisers we have our finger on the pulse of the news agenda and can be quick to respond, shaping the conversations as they emerge in the media.

The last word 

AI will no doubt continue to evolve and support us in immensely valuable ways that range from streamlining research to enhancing productivity.

However, it is not (yet) a substitute for the mix of empathy, curiosity and craft that blend into an impactful and meaningful piece of communication. As advisers, our greatest value lies not just in what we write, but in how we uniquely and creatively think, connect, and respond.

In an era where audiences crave authenticity and meaning, it’s not the speed of output that necessarily cuts through, but the depth of understanding behind it. And that, thankfully, remains unmistakably human.