Companies Write AI Policies to Combat Employee-Generated 'Slop'

Companies crack down on AI-generated workplace writing

A growing number of employers are establishing formal policies to curb what workers call "AI slop"—bloated, confusing documents generated by artificial intelligence tools and shared without human editing or critical thinking.

Travel app maker Polarsteps, HR software company Leapsome, and sales automation platform Clay have all rolled out written guidelines this year specifying when and how employees should use AI for internal communications. The policies stop short of outright bans but require workers to disclose AI use, apply their own reasoning, and ensure documents reflect their authentic voice.

"A formal policy creates a shared touchpoint rather than requiring leaders to repeatedly explain what is expected," said Clare Jones, CEO of Amsterdam-based Polarsteps, which released its AI principles earlier this year for roughly 100 employees.

The scope of the problem

The issue has escalated since ChatGPT's launch in late 2022. A late 2025 survey from BetterUp and Stanford's Social Media Lab found that 40% of 1,150 full-time US desk workers had received AI slop from a coworker in the preceding month. Respondents reported spending nearly two hours on average dealing with each instance.

Jessica Zwaan, vice president of people strategy and operations at Leapsome, described recently spending more time reading AI-generated prep materials than in the actual meeting they supported. "I don't know if I've ever wanted a clear sentence longer," she said. "Longer is not better."

Leapsome's policy, introduced in mid-August to its 130 employees in Berlin and New York, explicitly states: "If a short prompt produced a long document, it's not worth reading for the same reason it wasn't worth writing."

What the policies require

The new guidelines share common themes. Clay's policy, written by lead engineer Sophie Alpert and rolled out to 550 employees in early August, requires workers to stand behind every idea and sentence in their documents. It notes that "any extra time that readers need to spend to understand what you meant incurs a multiplicative cost on the team's time."

Alpert said she drafted the policy after receiving five overtly AI-generated documents in one week. When she asked colleagues to explain confusing sections, she was told to "just ignore that."

The policies also discourage using AI as an excuse for unclear writing. Leapsome's guidelines state: "'AI wrote it' isn't an answer if someone asks what you meant. Every word should be something you back."

Why it matters

These policies represent a significant shift in how organizations approach generative AI adoption. Rather than treating AI as an unqualified productivity tool, companies are recognizing that unchecked AI use can create new inefficiencies. The formalization of these rules suggests that informal guidance has proven insufficient, and that the volume of low-quality AI-generated content has reached a tipping point requiring institutional intervention. For technology leaders, this signals a need to balance AI enablement with quality controls.

Early results

Company leaders report positive initial reactions. Zwaan said many employees responded with relief: "Thank goodness someone's doing something about this." Some workers even requested the company extend restrictions to employee-to-employee messages and marketing copy.

At Polarsteps, Jones said the guidance is already producing results: "We're getting so much human content now, which is really lovely."

The phenomenon has become widespread enough that software developers have coined the term "meat proxies" for workers who share unchecked AI outputs. The term was popularized by German software developer Niklas Gruhn in an August 3 blog post.

A LinkedIn post about Clay's policy by CEO Varun Anand went viral in August, receiving nearly 10,000 reactions and more than 700 reposts as of September 3, according to Business Insider, which first reported these details.