AI slop is spreading.
New data from DoubleVerify finds that monthly ad requests associated with AI slop pages surged 354% between January and September 2026, climbing from 184 million to 834 million.
In total, DV recorded 3.3 billion ad requests tied to AI slop pages during the first nine months of 2026. The growth shot up in Q3, with requests jumping 47% in August and 58% in September.
(When DV refers to AI slop, it’s specifically describing low-quality AI content, not all AI content.)
Why This Matters:
In a separate analysis of 4.5 billion web pages observed across its measured traffic in 2026, DV found that 30% contained some form of AI-generated content.
But it’s the growth of low-quality AI content that’s particularly concerning. In Q2 2026, DV identified 5.3 times as many AI slop domains as it did a year earlier. Traffic to those domains also increased 4.3 times.
For advertisers, the challenge is identifying and avoiding this content as its volume grows.
Relatedly, DecryptAds published a study today on AI-generated recipe sites, highlighting examples of these networks and the adtech vendors helping them monetize. As long as these sites can generate ad revenue, there’s a financial incentive to keep producing AI slop, potentially siphoning ad dollars away from legitimate publishers.
Experts React:
Here’s a good comment from DV CTO Nisim Tal from a piece he wrote earlier this year:
“This is a scary moment, sure, but it shouldn’t be paralysing. Content creation is changing, and advertisers need to be prepared for slop and other forms of AI-generated content.”
Our Take:
Ad requests don’t directly translate into actual impressions or ad spending, but the sharp increase is concerning. Clearly, low-quality AI is becoming a common and larger part of the ad ecosystem. (And keep in mind, this is open web-only.)
Something else worth watching: AI slop is one thing, but it’s not hard to imagine a future where most of the open web consists of AI-generated content, much of it higher quality. And higher-quality AI content that deceives readers, for example, could be just as problematic, if not worse, than AI slop.
AdTechRadar is owned by Chris Harihar, an EVP at Mod Op. DoubleVerify is a Mod Op client.
