Meet ‘trendslop,’ the new, AI-fueled scourge of workplace consultants everywhere

Economists Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington argue that consultants can, at best, give dubious guidance, and at worst, exacerbate government and private sector dysfunction. In their book The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilizes Our Governments, and Warps Our Economies, the economists argue consultants emerged in a post-Ronald Reagan era of reduced regulations, necessitating third parties come in to save institutions who had lost faith in themselves.

Instead of righting the ship, Mazzacato and Collington argued, these consultants created just an “impression of value,” an illusion of helpfulness and little else, all while the government and private companies burned money to hire them. 

In an era of AI, promising to save companies cash by automating white-collar jobs, the use of chatbots for guidance may be an appealing alternative to firms no longer willing or able to shell out for consultants. But emerging research shows that while you can ask AI what you would a consultant for a fraction of the price, its advice may not be worth taking, either. In fact, AI assistance might just present an old problem in a new medium.

A recent study led by the Esade Business School at the Universitat Ramon Llull in Barcelona, Spain, found that when various large language models (LLMs) were asked to provide guidance on a workplace issue, they gravitated toward a response that was most aligned with buzzwords, rather than providing guidance that best aligned with the scenario. Researchers dubbed the proclivity of AI to gravitate toward the same jargon to........

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