AI slop is poisoning LinkedIn. And users have had enough. They basically put the entire business model of the modern knowledge worker on trial. That's really the only way to describe it.

When you are a consultant or provide any other kind of knowledge-based services, then your product is your brain. And if you just look at the surface level, scrolling through LinkedIn (or Twitter, for that matter) right now, the mood in the industry feels different.

It's a party. It really is.

Everyone is popping champagne.

It feels like a golden age for productivity. You talk to consultants, you talk to founders, and they're all saying the same thing: "I have finally cloned myself. I'm everywhere."

They're using AI to write faster. They're on LinkedIn five days a week, three times per day. They have a newsletter. They're churning out these white papers. The bottleneck used to be: "I just don't have time to write." And the general consensus is that the bottleneck is gone.

But here is the thing. A...

Have you noticed how AI in 2025 trained us to use speed? More reports. More analysis. More social media posts, etc. But has that also trained us to smell the use of AI right away? Perhaps you have experienced how many people sound confident and have no clue what they are talking about?

Well, the latter was a problem before AI. As John Cleese stated so eloquently eleven years ago: "You see, if you’re very, very stupid, how can you possibly realize that you’re very, very stupid? You’d have to be relatively intelligent to realize how stupid you are…"

So here we are. It’s the New Year. We copy and paste AI content like madmen. Maybe you, too, have once or twice responded to a LinkedIn comment by asking GPT for a response without even reading or understanding it. I see it every day. The em dash is the easiest tell. But there are many others. We suspect AI-generated content even when it's not there. Trust is down the drain. When someone invites us to connect on LinkedIn, we immediately exp...

In 2023 and 2024, boutique consultants could still get paid to explain what a prompt is. In 2025, that window closed.

Executives stopped being impressed by the tool and began to judge the operator. ChatGPT moved from a shiny object to boring infrastructure. The buyers who sign serious checks now assume you can use it. Competence is the floor, not the fee.

Remember web community managers in 2002? These were among the best-paying jobs back then. By the time I organized a Web Managers Roundtable at The World Bank headquarters in Washington, DC, it was already entry-level. It did not die. It got renamed, sliced up, and buried inside other titles. It's the job of volunteers or virtual assistants in free Facebook groups and forums like Slack, Discord, Substack, Circle, or Skool.

ChatGPT-related expertise is facing the same journey into oblivion. Here's why:

1. AI moved from “toy” to the default operating system for knowledge work

Things that matter here:

• ChatGPT hits 700M, then 800M
...

If you sell high-stakes advice, you are standing in a quiet war right now. On one side, you have AI, fast and tireless. It cleans data, drafts reports, and stitches together insights in minutes. On the other side, you have the only thing that earns your premium fee. Your judgment under pressure.

The danger is not that AI will replace you. The danger is that you will let it practice for you until your own knowledge evaporates and judgment goes soft.

A few months ago, it shocked me when it happened to me. I went on a sales call with a prospect who was so grateful for all the support I'd given her on LinkedIn. I couldn't even remember what I posted at all, like, that morning. Let alone how I interacted with her content last week.

That's when I realized I actually knew nothing of her work and background because AI had done most of the work for me commenting on her posts, respond to comments, and even sharing her content.

For one, I felt like a fake. Not a reputation, I'd like to have. ...

A Battle Cry for Original Intelligence

Most companies are not getting the return they expected from AI. A recent report from MIT noted that 95 percent of organizations see no measurable ROI from their generative AI investments.

Here is why. The race for efficiency has left many firms drowning in sameness. Generative AI is a machine for conformity. Generative models predict the next most probable token. GPT doesn’t think. It averages. It predicts the next likely word based on what most people would write, believe, or do. They complete groupthink patterns. They do not create intent. They do not hold a point of view. When teams feed the same models the same prompts, outputs converge. Convergence produces polished sameness. Polished sameness feels safe. It does not win.

True value comes from outsiders who resist groupthink and push beyond the idea space. Einstein rewrote physics from a patent desk, not a committee. Curie refined radium in a shed, not a boardroom. Tesla worked alone whil...

Everyone’s shouting that AI will either “replace” us or “empower” us. That kind of thinking shows a lack of original thought. The issue isn’t whether AI is coming for boutique consultants, because it is. The real issue is that many boutique consultants see AI as just a tool. They don't view it as a partner in transformation.

Clients have realized that ChatGPT can handle 80% of the work that consultants used to charge $15K for. And when it comes to getting help fast and free, they would rather do it themselves. It's easier and faster to put a prompt into AI than to send you an email.

Microsoft’s recent Work Trend Index showed what most consultants are still denying.

Generative AI is taking on full work tasks across many industries and showing real success. That’s not a prediction. This is happening now. Your clients draft go-to-market plans with a single prompt. They generate SWOT analyses, persona decks, and training outlines in seconds.

Microsoft analyzed 200,000 U.S.-based Copilo...