The ‘Seems like AI slop’ button LinkedIn quietly rolled out on July 30th is apparently seeing real traction. Chief product officer Hari Srinivasan said Thursday that over a million people have already clicked the flag, which sits in the three-dots menu on any post. That’s a meaningful number for a platform where professional reputation is currency — and where AI-generated content has been quietly flooding feeds for over a year.
Some context on why LinkedIn felt the heat: AI detector Pangram found that 41 percent of longform posts on the platform were fully AI-generated, a stat first reported by 404 Media. In response, LinkedIn deployed new classifiers to detect AI content, stripped out a feature that offered to ‘enhance your post’ with AI, and gave users the slop button. Srinivasan called AI slop ‘a top priority for all of us.’
The early results are striking. Users are now seeing 40 percent fewer views on content LinkedIn classifies as AI slop compared to a few weeks ago, according to Srinivasan. That’s not just a cosmetic change — it’s an algorithmic deprioritization that actually hurts reach. LinkedIn is also adding a new notification for authors: ‘Some members told us this post seems like AI.’ Srinivasan said the approach assumes good intent: ‘I know I’m increasingly conscious on how to not sound like AI & the goal is to provide helpful feedback.’
The interesting tension here is that LinkedIn spent 2023 leaning into AI writing tools, then spent 2024 walking that back. The platform now has to distinguish between someone using AI to draft a thoughtful post versus someone mass-producing engagement bait. The 40 percent drop suggests the classifiers are doing something, but whether they can tell the difference between polished human writing and polished AI writing remains an open question. Earlier this year, LinkedIn also said it would crack down on comments created at scale ‘with little or no human involvement,’ so the enforcement net is widening.
