Spellbook CEO demands 'D+ version' of employee ideas to curb AI slop

The executive recently issued a formal policy update warning that while AI excels at constrained tasks like coding or contract review, it struggles with long-form writing. Stevenson noted that reliance on generative models leads to bloated, repetitive documents that say little of substance. To counter this, he is enforcing a new standard: project proposals must be drafted by human authors to ensure the reasoning remains genuine, while any AI-assisted work must be clearly labeled as such.

This push for transparency aligns with a growing movement among tech companies to combat "AI sloppification." Executives at firms like Synthesia and Clay have similarly cautioned staff that excessive automation can force teams to waste time parsing low-quality, AI-generated content. Under Spellbook’s new guidelines, employees are explicitly encouraged to submit scrappy, five-point bulleted lists rather than multi-page reports. Stevenson emphasizes that accountability rests with the human sender; if a document contains errors or "hallucinated" information, it is treated as the employee's own failure. By mandating that all customer communication remain hand-written, the company aims to preserve a sense of human care that the CEO believes algorithms cannot replicate.