AI didn't flood the internet with bad content because it's bad. It flooded the internet with bad content because most people using it don't have taste. Here's what that means for studios that do.
The word 'slop' entered the lexicon in 2024 to describe the flood of low-quality AI-generated content that has taken over large parts of the internet. Blog posts. Product descriptions. Marketing emails. Illustrations. It's everywhere, and it's getting worse.
The instinct is to blame AI. That's wrong. AI is a tool. The problem isn't the tool — it's that most people using it don't have taste, and the tool doesn't require taste to operate.
Why this is actually good news
If AI had arrived and made everyone a great designer, studios would be in trouble. What actually happened is that AI made everyone a producer of adequate-looking work. And adequate is now the most common thing on the internet.
Which means: adequate is invisible. Nobody stops for adequate. Nobody remembers adequate. The bar hasn't gone down — it's gone up. AI has raised the floor and left the ceiling untouched.
AI made everyone a designer. It didn't make anyone a creative director.
What stays scarce
- Taste — knowing what's worth making
- Judgment — knowing what to say no to
- Restraint — knowing when to stop
- Originality — knowing what hasn't been done before
The studios that will win the AI era aren't the ones producing more. They're the ones producing work that survives the noise floor. That's a taste problem, not a technology problem. And it's a much harder problem — which is exactly why the work is still valuable.