By Craig Lucie, Lucie Content CEO
I recently had Joe Sutherland, who runs the Center for AI Learning at Emory University, on our Create Your News podcast.
After the episode wrapped, he said something that really stuck with me.
He said he wouldn’t be surprised if Instagram eventually gets phased out, because of all the AI slop.
And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
The AI Slop Problem
I’ll admit it, I read the comments on those fake AI videos. You know the ones. An elephant rescuing a tiger, jumping on its back, doing something physically impossible. One of those had over a million views on X.
And the comments are full of people saying, “I can’t believe how many people don’t realize this is AI.”
Let me be frank: What are we doing here? Where are we actually headed with all of this?
So I asked Joe about it.
The Return to Earned Trust
Here’s what Joe told me:
“There is so much crud out there. There’s no real voice. And where I think we’re going, if you jump four, five, ten years, people are going to look for high-touch, high-cost connections to get the information they really need.
I think where we’re going is back toward earned trust through expertise. This maven-esque societal economy. You’ll build authentic relationships through high-cost interactions.”
And I think Joe is spot on. People want trust. They want credibility. They want real connection.
And authentic storytelling, especially through video, still does that better than anything else.
Trust Alone Isn’t Enough Anymore
But here’s the reality of this new AI-driven world: trust alone isn’t enough anymore. You also have to be discoverable.
If you’re going to spend money on content creation, there has to be a return. And that return isn’t just views or likes, it’s whether the right people can actually find you when they ask AI platforms who to trust.
Think about it: you can have the most credible expertise, the most authentic storytelling, and the highest-quality video content. But if you’re not showing up when someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity for a recommendation in your space, none of it matters.
You’re invisible.
The Future Isn’t AI Slop, It’s Earned Trust + AI Discoverability
That’s where this all comes together.
The future isn’t AI slop. And it’s not low-effort content chasing algorithms.
The future is earned trust, real expertise, and authentic storytelling, paired with AI discoverability.
People will gravitate toward high-touch, high-cost connections with experts they trust. But those experts need to be findable. They need to show up in the places people are actually searching.
If you’re going to create content in 2026 and beyond, it has to do both:
- Build real trust through authentic storytelling and credible expertise
- Optimize for AI discovery so the right people can actually find you
Otherwise, what are we really doing?
Listen to the full conversation with Joe Sutherland on the Create Your News podcast. And if you’re ready to build content that earns trust and gets discovered, let’s talk. Contact Lucie Content today!
