Merriam-Webster has crowned "AI slop" as its 2025 Word of the Year, officially recognizing a term that defines the flood of low-quality AI-generated content overwhelming the internet. The dictionary defines AI slop as "digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence."
The designation comes as AI-generated articles now comprise more than half of all English-language content on the web, according to search engine optimization firm Graphite. This milestone marks a dramatic shift in the internet's content landscape, with artificial intelligence systems producing content at unprecedented scale.
Mentions Surge Ninefold in 2025
Online media intelligence company Meltwater found that mentions of "AI slop" increased ninefold from 2024 to 2025, with negative sentiment reaching 54 percent in October. The surge reflects growing frustration with bizarre AI-generated videos, fake news, junky AI-written books, and "workslop" reports wasting colleagues' time.
"It's such an illustrative word," said Greg Barlow, Merriam-Webster's president. "It's part of a transformative technology, AI, and it's something that people have found fascinating, annoying, and a little bit ridiculous."
From Mud to Digital Waste
The word "slop" originated in the 1700s meaning "soft mud," evolved to mean "food waste" in the 1800s, and gradually came to represent "a product of little or no value." The newest definition captures the visceral distaste many feel toward AI-generated content.
"Like slime, sludge, and muck, slop has the wet sound of something you don't want to touch," Merriam-Webster wrote. "Slop oozes into everything." The AI slop phenomenon encompasses absurd videos, off-kilter advertising images, and endless talking animal clips flooding social media platforms.
Industry-Wide Recognition
Merriam-Webster isn't alone in highlighting AI content concerns. The Economist also selected "slop" as its 2025 Word of the Year, while Australia's Macquarie Dictionary chose "AI slop" as a compound term. Oxford Dictionary selected "ragebait," describing problematic online content designed to provoke emotional responses.
The proliferation of AI slop has prompted platform responses. Pinterest and YouTube now offer features allowing users to limit AI-generated content in their feeds, acknowledging widespread user fatigue. These tools represent early attempts to give users control over the quality of content they encounter online.
Business and Cultural Impact
The explosion of AI-generated content has profound implications for content marketing, SEO strategies, and digital publishing. Graphite's finding that AI content now exceeds human-created English content online represents a fundamental shift in how information is produced and consumed across the internet.
Meta earned scrutiny when Reuters revealed the company projected earning $16 billion from ads including AI-generated scams. The company's AI-focused app "Vibes" reportedly attracted just 23,000 daily active users in its first weeks in European markets, suggesting limited consumer appetite for pure AI-generated content platforms.
Academic institutions also face challenges. University of London School of Law Professor Craig Reeves reported that AI slop has infiltrated academic publishing, with researchers themselves contributing to the proliferation of low-quality AI-generated content.
The recognition of "AI slop" as Word of the Year signals a cultural reckoning with artificial intelligence's impact on content quality, suggesting 2026 may bring increased scrutiny and potential regulatory responses to preserve content authenticity online.
