AI slop is Macquarie Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2025. It also won the people’s choice vote. The dictionary defines the word as “low-quality content created by generative AI [artificial intelligence], often containing errors, and not requested by the user”.

I’ve spent the last year researching the solicitous, duplicitous and ubiquitous generative AI – and I’ve been drowning in AI slop. So I applaud the choice.

This year began with Arwa Mahdawi’s Guardian column in January, warning the internet is “rapidly being overtaken by AI slop” – and sharing bizarre examples found on Facebook: AI-generated images of Jesus made out of shrimps.

But AI slop is not all fun, games and eye-rolling.

An AI journalist for business magazine Forbes wrote in September that AI slop is replacing once-valued professions. And a social media entrepreneur who turned to the “side gig” of creating AI content after being laid off by an internet company says it’s become the latest trend for earning side income, similar to Uber or street vending.

Overall, though I applauded the winner, I thought Macquarie Dictionary’s 2025 shortlist was banal, even boring.

Where, I thought, are the colourful expressions of days long gone? The “

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