As a result, end users are souring on “AI everywhere, all the time.” Only 8% of Americans would pay extra for AI, according to ZDNET-Aberdeen research. Amid rising AI slop concerns and growing consumer pushback, The Wall Street Journal reports that companies are becoming more cautious about how they promote AI in products.
“The biggest anti-pattern is AI everywhere without context,” says Neeraj Abhyankar, VP of data and AI at R Systems, a digital product engineering company. “Teams bolt chatbots or auto-generated content onto established products and workflows in ways that disrupt the user’s flow rather than enhance it.”
Sudden closures, such as the sunsetting of video generation app Sora, highlight the brittleness of AI offerings in the market. Enthusiasm for AI-generated content is also declining: 46% of users dislike companies that use AI to generate content, and 43% are less likely to purchase from them, according to SurveyMonkey’s State of Marketing 2025 report.
So, at the risk of losing potential business, is adding AI to your software product or service really worth it? And if so, how do you do it right? Below, we check in with experts to examine the downsides of hastily bolting AI onto existing products, as well as positive examples with measurable benefits, to help draw the line between useful AI and AI that just gets in the way.
