Imagine you were given a gift. An expensive gift.

A luxury watch. An Omega or a Patek Philippe. Or maybe a meticulously crafted Hermès handbag.

At first, you're grateful. You admire it. You feel special and valued. The gift represents how much the gift giver values you.

Then you discover it was fake.

Not an obvious fake. A highly crafted counterfeit. It looked authentic. It felt authentic. You may never have known otherwise.

But the moment you find out, something changes.

The gift is cheapened.

And so is your opinion of the person who gave it to you.

You start asking different questions. Why did they let me believe it was real? What else have they been dishonest about? Would I trust the next thing they gave me?

That, my friends, is the problem with AI-created content.

And no, the problem isn't simply that people think you're lazy.

That isn’t it.

For the past year, the marketing world has been turned upside down by AI. There was a rush to figure out who could produce more content, automate more work, and replace more people.

There’s pressure on us as marketers to “10x” our output with AI.

I dabbled in AI content creation myself.

And to sum up the experience: I felt gross.

I had this icky feeling that I was being disingenuous. It felt like painting on abs and claiming I had a six-pack.

It just didn't feel right.

I'm not an AI purist. I think it's an amazing tool. I use it. Heck, I used it on this essay asking AI to be my editor-in-chief.

But I also think we're misusing it in ways that can cause serious self-inflicted wounds.

Because if there is one thing marketing is supposed to be good at, it's building trust.

We want customers to trust us with their email address. We want them to trust that our webinar will be worth their time. We want them to trust that our product will deliver on its promise.

In B2B, trust matters even more because customers aren't just spending money when they buy from you. They're spending some of their social capital.

If they recommend you internally and you're a disappointment, they look bad.

So before they buy, they're constantly trying to answer one question:

Can I trust you?

And that's why people hunt for AI slop.

I don't think people are looking for AI-generated content because they want to catch someone being lazy.

I think they're trying to determine whether the person presenting themselves as an expert is actually, well…an expert.

Think about the implicit agreement between a writer and their audience.

When I read an article from someone who claims expertise, I assume the ideas came from somewhere. Their experience. Their judgment. Their mistakes. Their observations.

That's what I'm there for.

I'm not just consuming information. Information is cheap.

I'm giving you my attention because I believe you have something worth saying.

But when I discover that the content was largely generated by AI, the perception changes.

I thought I was getting your thinking.

Now I'm wondering how much of it was actually yours.

And once that question enters my mind, it doesn't always stay confined to just that piece of content.

It can spread to everything else you claim to know.

This is where I think most discussions about AI content miss the point.

The issue isn't necessarily that AI was involved.

The issue is what the audience believed they were receiving.

I'm not talking about using AI to fix a typo, tighten a sentence, organize your thoughts, or help you get unstuck. That's using a tool.

The problem starts when we take something largely generated by a machine and present it in a way that leads people to believe it represents our own expertise and thinking.

That's counterfeit authenticity.

The content may look like expertise. It may sound like expertise. It may even be useful.

But content isn't valuable only because of what it says.

It's also valuable because of who is saying it.

If I read something from an expert I respect, I'm placing value on the judgment behind the words. I believe the ideas came from experiences I haven't had and lessons I've yet to learn.

That's what gives their words authority.

If I later discover that authority was manufactured, I don't just question the article.

I question the source.

This is the real risk.

You might actually be an expert. You might have decades of experience. You might know more about your subject than almost anyone.

But once you give your audience reason to question the authenticity of your work, they have a reason to question everything else.

Did you write your book?

Did you develop that framework?

Are these actually your opinions?

How much of your expertise is real, and how much of it is being simulated?

That's the self-inflicted wound.

You can spend years building expertise and credibility, then lose it in an instant.

AI can help you produce more content.

But it can also make you harder to trust.

That's a terrible trade if your business depends on your authority.

I'm not arguing that we should ban AI from the writing process.

Use it to research. Use it to organize your thoughts. Use it to challenge your assumptions. Use it to edit. Use it to help you get unstuck.

For me, in my own writing process, I use AI in areas that I’m weak or time-constrained. Background research, copy-editing, the cartoons you see in my essays.

AI helps me produce a much more polished essay. But I’m careful not to outsource the important parts.

My experience.

My judgment.

My perspective.

My voice.

Those are things AI can imitate. But imitation isn't the same as authenticity.

And that's why this matters.

When someone discovers the expensive gift you gave them was a counterfeit, they don't just look differently at the gift.

They look differently at you.

They start wondering what else isn't what it appears to be.

That’s why we hunt for AI slop.

Not because we're trying to catch you being lazy.

Because we're trying to figure out if we can trust you.

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Salamat! (That means thank you in Filipino.)