Avoiding “Workslop” in Site Selection: How We Help Clients Stay Strategic, Streamlined, and Incentive Ready

As companies increasingly turn to generative AI to accelerate decision-making, a new challenge has emerged: “workslop.” This term, coined by researchers at BetterUp Labs and Stanford, refers to AI-generated content that looks polished but lacks the substance needed to move a project forward. In the high-stakes world of site selection and business incentives, workslop can be costly—leading to misaligned decisions, missed opportunities, and wasted time.

At Ashmore Consulting, we help clients avoid these pitfalls by combining deep expertise and experience, disciplined processes, and purposeful AI integration to ensure every step of the site selection journey is strategic, collaborative, and value-driven.

What Is Workslop—and Why It’s a Risk in Site Selection?

Workslop happens when AI is used to generate reports, presentations, or analyses that appear complete but are actually shallow, inaccurate, or missing critical context. In site selection, this can manifest as:

• Overly generic location comparisons
• Misinterpreted incentive program details, missed creative or innovative uses of incentive programs, reliance on outdated policy, program, or compliance requirements
• Incomplete workforce or infrastructure assessments
• AI-generated proposals that require significant rework

According to the HBR article, each instance of workslop costs nearly two hours of rework and creates downstream issues with coworkers in trust, collaboration, and productivity. In the study, employees reported spending an average of one hour and 56 minutes dealing with each instance of workslop. Based on participants’ estimates of time spent, as well as on their self-reported salary, they found that these workslop incidents carry an invisible tax of $186 per month. For an organization of 10,000 workers, given the estimated prevalence of workslop (41%), this yields over $9 million per year in lost productivity.  In a process as complex and collaborative as site selection, these costs multiply quickly.

In some ways, this is not a new story. There has always been sloppy work. We are prone to procrastination, to shortcuts, to leaning into busywork instead of careful thinking when we are tired. Gen AI gives us a new technology with which to lean into the same old bad habits—but now with the added cost of creating more work for our colleagues and undermining collaboration, at scale.

How We Help Clients Avoid Workslop in Site Selection

We’ve built our advisory model to prevent workslop before it starts—and to ensure that AI is used as a strategic accelerator, not a shortcut.

We Start with Substance, Not Style

Our team leads with rigorous analysis and real-world experience, not just AI-generated summaries. We validate every data point—whether it’s tax policy, workforce availability, or infrastructure capacity—before it enters your decision matrix.

We Collaborate, Not Offload

Workslop often results from offloading cognitive labor to others. We do the opposite. We work shoulder-to-shoulder with your internal teams—finance, tax, operations, HR, legal, PR—to ensure alignment, clarity, and shared ownership of outcomes.

We Use AI with a “Pilot Mindset”

We help clients adopt what the HBR article calls a “pilot mindset”—high agency, high optimism. That means:

• Using AI to enhance creativity and speed, not to avoid thinking
• Applying AI to model incentive scenarios, analyze labor markets, and forecast ROI
• Ensuring every AI-generated insight is reviewed, contextualized, and actionable

We Deliver Decision-Ready Insights

Our deliverables are not just AI outputs—they’re decision-ready tools. Whether it’s a comparative location analysis or a customized incentive negotiation strategy, we ensure every recommendation is grounded in client-specific goals and real-world feasibility.

Why This Matters for Incentives and Long-Term Success

Workslop doesn’t just waste time—it can lead to missed incentives, regulatory missteps, or suboptimal site choices. Our approach ensures:

• You maximize incentive value by aligning early with program requirements
• You avoid costly rework by getting it right the first time
• You build internal trust and external credibility with stakeholders and agencies

Strategic Site Selection Without the Slop

Generative AI is a powerful tool—but only when used with purpose, discipline, and expertise. At Ashmore Consulting, we help clients harness AI to accelerate outcomes, not create confusion. We eliminate workslop from the process and replace them with clarity, confidence, and competitive advantage.

Article that inspired the above writing: AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity