The hidden costs of workslop

Source: BetterUp Labs and Stanford Social Media Lab · 2025-09-22

AI is transforming the workplace at breakneck speed. But alongside the real productivity gains, a new phenomenon is quietly taxing organizations: workslop.

Workslop is AI-generated content that looks polished and complete — but is actually unhelpful, low-quality, or off the mark. It can take the shape of emails, documents, slide decks, or even code. While it may look good on the surface, workslop is often bloated, confusing, or just plain wrong. And according to new research from BetterUp and the Stanford Social Media Lab, workslop is far from rare.

Our September 2025 survey of 1,004 full-time U.S. desk workers revealed that:

40% of employees believe they’ve received workslop in the last month.

On average, workers estimate that 15.4% of the work they receive is AI workslop.

Managers are more exposed: 54% report receiving workslop, compared with 38.5% of individual contributors.

More than half (53%) admit that at least some of the work they themselves send may be workslop.

In other words, workslop is circulating in every direction — sideways between peers (40%), up the chain to managers (19%), and down from leaders to their teams (16%).

Employees reported spending an average of 1 hour and 51 minutes dealing with each instance of workslop, about 20 minutes longer than if the sender had done the work themselves. When translated into real costs, that wasted effort equates to an “invisible tax” of $186 per month per employee.

For an organization of 10,000 workers, that adds up to over $9 million in lost productivity every year.

And the reputational damage is real. About half of employees who received workslop said they viewed the sender as less creative, capable, and reliable. Forty-two percent saw them as less trustworthy, and over a third viewed them as less intelligent. Nearly one in three employees said they’d be less likely to want to work with that person again.

AI isn’t going away, but workslop doesn’t have to be part of the deal. Leaders can take proactive steps to set the tone:

Set clear AI guidelines. Employees need direction on when and how AI should be used. Align AI use with your organization’s values, strategy, and vision.

Build adaptive mindsets. BetterUp Labs’ research shows that workers with high optimism and high agency, a.k.a. the “Pilot mindset,” use AI more intentionally, to enhance creativity rather than just to shortcut work.

Recommit to collaboration. Effective prompting, giving feedback, and sharing context are human skills that matter more than ever. Encourage teams to treat AI not as a crutch, but as a partner and to stay mindful of the impact their AI use has on colleagues.

Workslop spreads when AI work loses context and accountability.

Our research shows that leaders can curb it by setting clear guardrails, modeling thoughtful AI use, and cultivating “pilot” mindsets that use AI to enhance collaboration rather than avoid work.

AI’s promise is real, but so are its pitfalls. By naming and addressing workslop, organizations can reclaim wasted time, rebuild trust, and unlock AI’s true potential as a tool for creativity and growth.