In mid-December 2025, the editors of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary chose “slop” as their word of the year. Their definition: “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”
It’s no mystery why they felt the term best described 2025. It was a year beset by uncanny AI-generated ads, search engine decay, and a tidal wave of AI music spamming streaming apps.
Though the choice clearly struck a popular nerve, not everybody appreciated the dictionary’s cheeky dig at AI companies and the cottage industry of slop they’ve engineered. In a year-end roundup shared via LinkedIn, for instance, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made it clear that he’d prefer we all left the term in 2025.
“We need to get beyond the arguments of slop vs sophistication,” Nadella wrote in a rambling post flagged by Windows Central, arguing that humanity needs to learn to accept AI as the “new equilibrium” of human nature. (As WC points out, there’s actually growing evidence that AI harms human cognitive ability.)
Going on, Nadella said that we now know enough about “riding the exponentials of model capabilities” as well as managing AI’s “‘jagged’ edges” to allow us to “get value of AI in the real world.”
“Ultimately, the most meaningful measure of progress is the outcomes for each of us,” the CEO concludes, in an impressive deluge of corporate-speak that may or may not itself by AI-generated. “It will be a messy process of discovery, like all technology and product development always is.”
Nadella’s comments come as Microsoft users have revolted en masse against the company’s AI products, which have largely been forced on them without consent. Earlier in December, it was reported that a staggering one billion PCs were still running Windows 10, even though a full half were eligible to upgrade to the AI-satured Windows 11.
That being the case, it’s obvious the CEO has a specific axe to grind with the people who refuse to go gentle into the sloppified night. Tech CEOs like Nadella might talk a big game about altruism and human achievement, but at the end of the day, AI is a product — and like any product, it lives or dies by consumer demand.
More on slop: YouTube Now Shutting Down Channels Posting AI Slop
