Photo Illustration by Sheldon Cooper. SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty ImagesFor the past few years, LinkedIn has encouraged professionals to embrace AI. It introduced AI tools to write profiles, rewrite posts, and help members publish more content than ever before. Now the company is reversing course. LinkedIn is rolling out one of its biggest authenticity initiatives ever, including reducing the visibility of generic AI-generated content, giving members a way to flag AI slop, and rewarding authentic human perspectives. The AI Content Explosion On LinkedIn And ElsewhereAI has made content abundant. Original thinking hasn’t kept up. In fact, within a year of ChatGPT's launch, 36% of new online articles were primarily AI-generated. By Q1 2026, approximately 50% of newly published online articles were classified as primarily AI-generated. On LinkedIn, more than half of long-form posts may be significantly AI-assisted or AI-written. LinkedIn’s business depends on trust. Professionals come to the platform expecting to learn from real people with real expertise. Buffer analyzed 52 million social posts across platforms. For LinkedIn, the median engagement rate fell 56% year over year during 2025. As feeds become filled with generic AI content, there’s less trust and less engagement. That leads to reduced advertising and premium membership revenue. LinkedIn has something bigger than an AI problem. It’s a trust problem.LinkedIn Helped Create The AI Slop ProblemLinkedIn was quick to integrate AI tools into many elements of its platform. In fact, just four months after ChatGPT launched, LinkedIn announced a feature that allows you to use AI to craft your LinkedIn profile. The feature generated suggestions for two of the most important parts of your profile, your Headline and About. Then, in 2024, LinkedIn began rolling out Rewrite with AI (also called the AI-powered writing tool) for posts. The feature lets you write at least 20 words of your own. Then it generates a polished draft based on it.This illustrates a challenge that many social media platforms and many of the world’s organizations are facing. The race to integrate AI into every nook and cranny of the business without an overarching strategy or understanding of the implications has them backtracking and being more thoughtful about their goals, mission, and brand. For years, social media platforms rewarded volume and polish. Now LinkedIn is explicitly saying that authentic human insight is becoming an important ranking signal. LinkedIn is sending a clear message: Stop letting AI do your thinking.The Psychology Shift Around AIWhen ChatGPT arrived, the prevailing wisdom was: use more AI, create more content, increase your visibility. That equation no longer works. More AI actually means less differentiation and ultimately less visibility. Consequently, LinkedIn is changing its algorithm, and professionals who share authentic perspectives will have a competitive advantage.Five Things To Do On LinkedIn To Increase Views And Engagement Of Your ContentThe changes to LinkedIn provide you an opportunity to stand out and get noticed.Tell personal stories. Stories engage the brain in ways that make them memorable. Sharing life stories that have value for your audience helps create emotional connection and confirms that your content is real. Share stories that teach, not stories that simply entertain. Storytelling is one of the most important skills to master in the age of AI and a critical skill for advancing your personal brand.Share opinions. AI can produce an endless stream of content, but only humans can give that content perspective and meaning. To differentiate your content from the generic repetitive AI content, infuse it with your unique point of view.Share failures. When you make yourself vulnerable by sharing what went wrong rather than touting your successes, you connect more deeply with readers and make your content more powerful. Share what you learned from failure. Not just failure.Show behind the scenes. Give people a peak into how things happen, not just the results. Showing them a glimpse of your thinking or preparation creates more meaning.Write first. Edit with AI. You want your content to be seen, shared, and remembered. That means you should commit to writing it and use AI to make it better. This allows your voice and unique personal brand to shine through. Think of AI as your editor, not your ghostwriter.This shift illustrates what I call The Great Human Premium. As AI makes content abundant, uniquely human contributions become more valuable. What’s important is perspective, judgment, experience, and original ideas. AI can generate content, but only people can generate credibility. The Great Human Premium is a counterbalance to the full-scale use of AI without having a strategy or understanding the implications. The future isn't about overusing AI or avoiding AI. It's about using AI to amplify your thinking instead of replacing it.Your New Competitive Advantage In The AI Age For the past two years, your competitive advantage was using AI. Today, everyone has AI. Your competitive advantage is what AI cannot replicate: your experiences, your judgment, and your point of view.What’s Happening At LinkedIn To Identify And Remove SlopLinkedIn is working to counteract AI slop on several fronts. LinkedIn’s Chief Product Officer, Hari Srinivasan, shared in a post on LinkedIn, “AI slop is a top priority for all of us. We really care about this. People come to LinkedIn to connect with real people and share their real perspectives, ideas, and expertise.” Srinivasan explained the newly introduced “Seems like AI slop” button that allows members to flag content that appears to have been AI-written. He shared that the company is also investing in automation defenses that now block hundreds of thousands of automated comment attempts daily. This is a reversal from LinkedIn’s original position on AI for posts. Their Enhance Your Post feature used AI to help you create your posts. That feature will be eliminated and replaced by a feature that provides a lighter AI touch that’s focused on proofreading what you wrote while keeping your authentic voice. LinkedIn Isn’t Alone In Backtracking On AIThis major effort and launch by LinkedIn is part of a much bigger move among social media platforms and other organizations to use AI more thoughtfully and strategically. Across industries, organizations rushed to integrate AI into every product and every process. Speed to market has been the mantra. LinkedIn's latest move suggests a different future. Many organizations are now discovering that faster isn't always better. The race to integrate AI into everything, in many cases, created more problems than it solved. The winners won't be the people who publish the most. They'll be the people who contribute something only a human can. AI can help you create content. It cannot create your perspective.William Arruda is a keynote speaker, bestselling author, and personal branding pioneer. Join his complimentary Maven Lightning Lesson, Public Speaking: Ask Me Anything—a live, interactive session where William answers your biggest public speaking and presentation skills questions.