The CEO of legal artificial intelligence (AI) firm Spellbook has instructed his staff to stop using generative chatbots to draft workplace proposals, warning that computer-generated writing often masks thin thinking behind empty corporate polish. Scott Stevenson, co-founder and CEO of the Toronto-based startup, noted that proposals packed with “AI nonsense” regularly land on his desk. Whether encountering a project roadmap or a sales campaign, Stevenson explained that synthetic text creates a superficial sheen that looks far more sophisticated than the underlying strategy merits.According to a report by Business Insider, instead of automated elegance, Stevenson is urging his team to hand in their raw, unfinished thoughts.“I want the D+ version of your plan. I would rather that you send a scrappy 5 bullet point proposal than 5 pages of polished fluff,” Stevenson stated, urging personnel to resist dressing up their ideas in florid machine prose. The directive is striking coming from an executive whose company develops AI systems designed to analyse and draft legal agreements. Stevenson’s message is clear: staff should leverage automation where appropriate, but never allow the tools to replace original analysis.
Spellbook’s new in-house rules: What CEO said in memo to employees
To tackle the issue directly, Stevenson circulated a directive to his 200-plus workforce, laying out strict rules for how staff must handle generative writing tools. The memo noted that while AI excels at bounded technical jobs like programming and contract analysis, it struggles with open-ended prose, frequently churning out repetitive filler, diluted arguments, and baseless assertions that erode confidence in the author.While we are an AI company, and believe in the usefulness of AI, we think that today it works best in highly constrained work like coding or contract review. We do not believe that models are good at unconstrained longform writing, yet. Documents end up too long while saying too little, use repetitive language that decreases trust in your thinking, and sometimes contain ungrounded nonsense.While being able to create a polished longform document with a prompt may feel powerful and professional—this impression is often only surface level.Good writing is concise and authentic. I would rather that you send a scrappy 5 bullet point proposal than 5 pages of polished fluff.Furthermore, AI writing has become increasingly recognizable.We want our customers to always feel our care when we communicate with them, and we don’t think that AI generated writing accomplishes this.Our new AI policy is as follows:You should indicate if a document or message you are sending internally was drafted with AI: this helps the reader digest it appropriately.AI should not be used for writing the main body of project proposals: we want to see your authentic reasoning. You may use AI for supplemental materials like spreadsheets and tables, but not for the core of your reasoning.a. When in doubt, send a “D+ Version”: we often don’t want a long or polished document. Concise authentic bullet points are often enough to get a conversation going. Thinking about how to make your argument succinct is helpful for the reader.Writing you send will be treated as your own: A lawyer is accountable if they submit an argument with hallucinated case law. We will also hold ourselves accountable for our own writing. Please review everything that you send to the team thoroughly, as it will be treated as your ownCustomer communications should always be hand-written: We want our 5,000 customers to feel authentic human care with every interaction.
Curbing ‘AI sloppification’ in the Workplace
While low-quality machine content has inundated platforms like LinkedIn, business leaders are alarmed by synthetic text inside office communication, the report said, adding that other tech founders are facing similar issues.The CEO of AI video platform Synthesia cautioned his workforce earlier this year against “AI sloppification,” pointing out that wordy drafts force multiple colleagues to waste valuable work hours deciphering bloated documents instead of a single author spending a few minutes clarifying their point. Similarly, AI software firm Clay rolled out an organisation-wide writing code centered on core ideas like “writing is thinking” and “longer is not better.”