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Shopify CEO Tobias L\u00fctke is getting a first-hand look at the AI-workplace revolution, and it isn\u2019t a pretty sight.<\/p>\n
New reporting by Fortune<\/a> revealed the disastrous results of Shopify\u2019s all-out scramble to embrace AI nearly a year ago. After telling workers that using AI tools is a \u201cbaseline expectation\u201d in the workplace, L\u00fctke is now changing his tune as workers spew out AI-generated emails, memos, and code without double-checking it beforehand.<\/p>\n \u201cWe call those \u2018slop grenades\u2019 that people toss at each other,\u201d L\u00fctke said in an interview on the Knowledge Project podcast<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely a bad thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The CEO further explained that the initiative incentivized workers to \u201cgo nuts\u201d on AI, leading to a deluge of AI generated slop.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t really read it, and now it has to be reviewed by your colleagues, and they are like, \u2018this doesn\u2019t look right,’\u201d he complained. \u201cYou\u2019re just letting AI do the work for you.\u201d<\/p>\n As ironic as it may be for the once-AI-happy Shopify exec, he\u2019s far from alone. An April survey<\/a> of 1,150 office workers found that 40 percent had encountered a phenomenon known as \u201cworkslop,\u201d or AI-generated content that looks professional on the surface but lacks any actual substance.<\/p>\n Estimates found workers already waste 3.4 hours a month cleaning up the AI schlock, amounting to a monthly loss of $8.1 million for a workplace with 10,000 employees.<\/p>\n