The Anti-Slop Rules

Your copy sounds like AI wrote it. Here are the words, patterns, and habits that signal machine-generated mediocrity, and what to do instead.

You can spot AI-generated copy in about three seconds. It has a texture. Smooth, competent, completely devoid of a human behind it. The sentences are grammatically perfect and emotionally empty. The words are impressive and say nothing. The whole thing reads like it was generated by someone who asked an AI to "write compelling copy" and hit publish on the first draft.

I see this everywhere now. Landing pages. Product descriptions. Email sequences. LinkedIn posts. Founders using AI to write their copy, which is fine, and then shipping the first output without editing it, which is death. The copy works grammatically. It fails commercially. Because the reader's brain has learned to pattern-match AI slop, and the moment it recognizes the pattern, trust evaporates.

These rules exist to break that pattern. I use them for everything I write and everything I ask AI to help me write. They're the difference between copy that sounds like a person wrote it and copy that sounds like a prompt generated it.

The kill list

If these words or phrases appear in your copy, delete them. Every one of them is a signal that no human was involved in the writing. They're the verbal equivalent of a stock photo.

Read your landing page out loud. Every time you hit one of these, replace it with what you'd actually say if a friend asked you what your product does. The replacement will be shorter, plainer, and more convincing.

The pattern list

Beyond individual words, AI produces structural patterns that are just as recognizable. Kill these too.

• The question + "You're not alone" opener. "Struggling to find product-market fit? You're not alone." Delete the entire opening. Start with something specific.
• The triple parallel structure. "It's not about working harder. It's about working smarter. It's about working on the right things." Once per page, this can land. Twice and it reads like a template.
• Stacked adjectives. "Our powerful, proven, actionable framework." Pick one. If you need three adjectives to describe it, you don't know what it is.
• The soft close. "So what are you waiting for?" The reader is waiting for you to be specific. Replace with what they should actually do: "Start your free trial" or "Book a 15-minute call."
• Exclamation points. In professional copy, exclamation points signal that the writer doesn't trust the sentence to carry energy on its own. Cut all of them except in direct user quotes.
• The everything sentence. "Whether you're a startup founder, a product manager, or an enterprise leader..." You're talking to everyone, which means you're talking to no one. Pick the one person this is for.

What to do instead

The cure isn't writing without AI. The cure is editing like a human after the AI generates.

• Write like one person talking to one person. Not a brand addressing an audience. You, talking to one specific person about their specific problem. If your copy would work as a text message to a friend, it's close.
• Use contractions. It's, don't, won't, can't. Copy without contractions sounds like a legal document.
• Vary sentence length. Three words. Then a longer sentence that takes its time and builds to something. Then another short one. Monotonous rhythm is the AI tell. Humans write in irregular patterns.
• Use specific numbers. Not "many founders" but "347 founders." Not "save hours every week" but "save 6 hours a week." Specificity signals that a real person counted something real.
• Write the way your reader talks. Not the way you write in a document. Go to Reddit, Twitter, or Slack where your users hang out. Read how they describe their problem. Use those words. Their vocabulary is your copy.
• Read it out loud. If you stumble over a sentence, rewrite it. If a phrase sounds like something you'd never say in conversation, cut it. Your ear is a better editor than your eye.
• Cut 30% of your first draft. Then cut 10% more. Most AI-generated copy is 40% filler. Every sentence needs to earn the next one. If it doesn't, it goes.

Before and after

Here's what applying these rules looks like in practice.

Notice the pattern. The "before" versions sound impressive and say nothing. The "after" versions are specific, plain, and make a concrete claim. The "before" versions could describe any product. The "after" versions describe one product solving one problem for one person.

If a hype-y AI generalist could have written your copy, it's not done yet. Sharpen it until they couldn't.

The one-sentence test

After you've cleaned up your copy, run this test: can your reader finish the sentence "I use this because ___" in five words? If the answer requires a paragraph, your positioning is fuzzy. If the answer is "it's a comprehensive, robust platform," you're in trouble. If the answer is "it transcribes my podcasts," you're there.

Clear copy comes from clear thinking. Slop comes from skipping the thinking and letting the AI fill in the blanks. The AI is a drafting tool, not a finished-product machine. The work is in the editing. Always has been.