Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke warns AI-generated work can create more work
Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke has cautioned that artificial intelligence can sometimes increase workplace workloads instead of reducing them, particularly when employees use AI to produce material without checking its quality or relevance, Business Insider report.
Speaking onThe Knowledge Projectpodcast, Lütke said the speed offered by AI can encourage employees to generate more content than their colleagues actually need to process. He described such material as “slop grenades” and argued that AI should support human judgment rather than replace it.
When AI output becomes someone else’s problem
Lütke highlighted workplace communication as one example. An employee could use AI to produce a lengthy email, only for the recipient to turn to another language model to understand and condense it.
For Lütke, this defeats the purpose of using AI to improve productivity. He said the technology is particularly useful when it helps employees make their ideas more precise and concise, rather than simply increasing the amount of material being produced.
He also stressed that people still need to take responsibility for the work they put forward. Machines can provide information and assistance, he said, but humans remain responsible for deciding what should ultimately be delivered.
Shopify is already using AI extensively
The warning comes from the head of a company that has itself made extensive use of AI. Shopify has introduced AI-based tools for its agents, while Lütke said the company’s internal AI agent, River, is responsible for a significant proportion of production code pull requests.
He estimated that River could be handling as much as half of those requests.
The contrast highlights Lütke’s position that the value of AI depends on how it is deployed. Increasing the volume of output does not necessarily mean employees are becoming more productive if others have to spend time checking or repairing that work.
‘Workslop’ puts a cost on AI-generated output
The issue has also been examined by researchers using the term “workslop” for AI-generated work that looks finished but does not provide enough value to be immediately useful.
A survey of 962 full-time US desk workers by BetterUp Labs and Stanford’s Social Media Lab found that 52.7% said they had sent workslop to a colleague. Another 38% said they had received it.
Those who received such material reported spending an average of 3.4 hours a month cleaning it up. Broken links in emails and unnecessarily complicated code were among the examples identified by the research.
The survey also found an impact on workplace relationships. People who received workslop tended to view colleagues who sent it as less competent and less friendly. More than one-third of recipients said they would try to avoid working with those colleagues.
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First Published onSeptember 19, 2026, 14:01:01 IST
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