AI Fatigue Is Already Here
Yes, we made this with AI. On purpose.
Look at the image above. We made it with AI, on purpose, and it took almost no effort. That is the problem.
Anyone can now fill a website, a feed, and a video channel with content no person ever thought about. People have noticed. So have the platforms. And your potential clients are are beginning to throw up in their mouth when you signal too much automation.
People can tell, and it costs you
In a Harris Poll study released in June 2026, 73 percent of consumers said they would be less likely to trust an ad they suspected was made with AI. Sixty-three percent said they would be less likely to buy from a brand that uses AI-generated ads. More than half said they hear about AI so much that it has started to annoy them.
A UK survey by Optimizely in September 2026 found the same mood. Fifty-seven percent of people said they can usually tell when content was generated by AI, and 67 percent called AI-generated images of people in marketing creepy.
Merriam-Webster's word of the year for 2025 was "slop." Nobody needed it explained.
The platforms are pushing back
In January 2026, YouTube terminated 16 channels with a combined 35 million subscribers and 4.7 billion views under its policy against inauthentic content. YouTube was careful to say it is not banning AI. Its target is mass-produced, templated content with no human creative input.
Google Search draws the same line. Its quality rater guidelines now call for the lowest rating when nearly all of a page is AI-generated with little effort, originality, or added value.
Both rules come down to one question. Did a person add anything?
Lawyers have already seen how this ends
Your profession has its own cautionary tale. A public database kept by legal researcher Damien Charlotin now lists more than 2,000 court decisions worldwide involving AI-fabricated citations and other invented material.
In those cases the software did what it always does. The failure was a person who signed something without reading it. Marketing with your name on it works the same way.
Also made with AI. Also on purpose.
Where AI earns its place
We use AI every day, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. It is good at research, outlines, first drafts, transcripts, and generating images. The roadside photo on our last case study started as an AI image. We directed it, threw out the first version, and rebuilt the phone screen because the generator could not draw a believable one.
AI did the labor. A person made every decision that mattered. That is how all of our social and content work gets made.
What a person has to bring
Four things, and none of them can be automated.
Direct. Decide what the piece is for, who will read it, and what they should do next.
Create. Supply what only your firm has: how your county's courts really run, what you charge, your own face and voice.
Understand. Know the law and the client well enough to catch what the machine gets wrong. It will get things wrong.
Contribute. Add an opinion, an experience, or a number that is not already on a thousand other websites.
A ten-second test
Read anything your firm has published and ask one question. Could any firm in any city have posted this? If so, it is filler, and readers and search engines are both learning to skip it.
If you want a second opinion on your own site, send us the link. We will tell you which pages read like a person wrote them and which do not.
Frequently asked questions
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No. AI is a useful tool for research, drafts, and production. The trouble starts when nobody who knows the law and the client reviews, corrects, and adds to what it produces.
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Google says it judges content on quality, not on how it was made. Its rater guidelines call for the lowest rating when nearly all of a page is AI-generated with little effort, originality, or added value.
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Many do. In a 2026 Harris Poll study, 73 percent of consumers said they would be less likely to trust an ad they suspected was made with AI.