AI Copywriting for Apartments is AI Slop, All for SEO
Wait, Aren’t You Guys Purists with AI Use?
Not totally. Truly, honestly, we have used AI at Zipcode Creative for some of our internal content. We’ve tested the waters. We’ve given it a shot. We tried it early on, when it was still a bit actor in the margins instead of the main character in every headline. And back then, too, we found it just wasn’t hitting the mark for us.
So we gave it a rest and kept up with our conversational, informational, very human methodology of writing things from scratch.
And during that period of rest, AI got a bit more advanced. We imagine it was fed some more content (likely content it wasn’t supposed to have in the first place), and it sharpened its witticisms and figured out new voices to try out, ratcheting up or turning down its loquacity or broadening or narrowing its lexicon based on whatever the prompt was. Good ol’ “Chatty G” could be basically whatever you wanted it to be.
Except: Original.
There’s something beautiful and brilliant about the depths of the human mind in its creativity. But LLMs can only reprocess and regurgitate what they’ve already been fed. It’s recycled from everything that’s been dumped into it. It’s not the best. It’s a mishmash that’s been siphoned and reconstituted from one tank to another. So that makes it pretty easy to see when something’s been AI written. Plenty of patterns.
Is it cool that it can do this? Yeah, pretty cool!
Is it making humanity dumber? Likely. But I digress.
We’re a truly boutique creative agency. We do our best to maintain our small but mighty approach. But we still gotta have some business while the business is still there to be had. So, we gotta have reach. Ergo, we used AI to help us help our customers find us.
That might have you wondering where we drew the line. Yep, there was absolutely a line.
We NEVER used AI for:
- Brand messaging (hello, that’s our specialty!)
- Marketing copy
- ANY Client work we were hired to create
We’ve done a lot of testing, and it always came up short. We fiddled around and found out it was a HECK NO (to put it lightly). No shortcut was worth that lower and totally unoriginal quality of work. And it certainly wasn’t what our clients had hired us for. Our creativity and ability to connect with the ideal resident or resonate with the ideal audience sits squarely within our storytelling.
Robots don’t have the life experience to know how stressful a move can be, or how vital responsive maintenance truly is. But you can bet your butt we humans know.
We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: Every brand has a story. The way we at Zipcode Creative are able to tell each multifamily brand’s story is Our Gift. So we’re not going to sub that out.
We DID use AI for:
- Our internal content and supporting social posts from January to August 2026.
And…it looked a little like this:
- Ask AI for help determining what keywords our customers were searching
- Ask AI to create blog topics based on the overlap between what our customers needed and what we provided
- Ask AI to *write* blogs and social to help create traffic and exposure
Again, that was only for 2026, for the first eight months.
Now, recall with me: We dove in predominantly to boost our SEO/GEO reach. And it has worked for this particular goal.
The goal in using AI was not to create incredibly original internal content that was groundbreaking (obviously). We wanted it to be helpful and findable. SEO/Search visibility is not the only goal (because when is it ever?). When people landed on our page, we wanted the content to actually be worth reading based on educational or inspirational ideas. We want to set off a spark in your own imagination, unlocking your own creative processes as for how much farther you could take your own brand.
And that’s why we started by looking at what our customers needed, instead of just shouting into the ether about what we did and what we could do.
It’s never been our approach to be salesy, and so we needed to find a way to be helpful, step by step. And this time around, we wanted to reach more customers than before, instead of hoping that, by some good luck and fat chances, you’d magically find us.
This system has worked for us to achieve more traffic and connect with the right people, proven by the newest content (though there were old favorites, too.)
For example, in 2025 only 1 in 4 of our newly published posts picked up much real traffic in their first months. By comparison, THIS year (2026) 4 out of 5 of our published posts got the traffic we were looking for.
Basically, the content we’d created right now connects with readers immediately instead of just sitting there. On top of that YoY traffic increase, we also saw:
A 108% increase in average time spent on a page.
Sweet!
But even though we found some level of success in improving our reach and awareness, we didn’t love how every blog was getting churned out. It didn’t feel real because it wasn’t. And there were some pretty obvious signs (to us) that it wasn’t us behind the wheel.
So, we present: The telltale signs of AI slop (phrases, words, ways of “speaking”) that were waving big red flags at us every time we proofed the blog before sharing.
How to Identify AI Slop in Copywriting
AI slop is showing up everywhere we look. Realty signs. Event posters (. Linkedin posts. Blog entries. It’s bad graphic design. It’s “what would I look like in the 80s” throwbacks. It’s unreadable post after unreadable post. The telltale signs are all there.
It goes a lot farther than the em-dash. Quick sidebar/soapbox here: I’m hoping we can all agree that because AI was trained on decent writers who used and loved em-dashes, of *course* it’s going to snag those and use it as its own, too. (You can pry that em-dash out of our cold — no, wait — very much alive and sometimes warm, human hands that are still out here typing complex sentences.)
But what makes it unreadable? How does it fall into the slop category? We figured out firsthand that AI is churning out junk…because we’ve been using it here and there. Not for graphic design or any client work, but for some of our internal blog content from January through August 2026. And that’s it. (Since we gotta keep up with the Joneses and all.)
Clear Signs of AI Slop:
We’ve collected some of the clearest signs that something’s AI-written. This list isn’t exhaustive and (please) don’t use it to punish real human writers, either. (Let’s remember together: LLMs have been trained on actual human writing and creativity.) But if you want to compare this against some of your copywriting to ensure it doesn’t give readers the “ick”, by all means:
“And honestly?”
Ah yes, an unnecessary question for the sake of sounding conversationally human, like they’re about to give you an aside, or a pro tip they haven’t given anyone else. Hard pass.
Example:
Here it is, the apartment for you. And honestly? A one-bedroom, one-bathroom never sounded so good.
“Quietly”
Let me be real loud about this one. QUIT IT with the “quietly” already. This word is on AI’s top-40 hits. Not everything’s quiet.
Example:
That lackluster tour is quietly killing your leasing rates.
“Unhurried” / “Unbothered”
Unsurprisingly, we’re bothered by both of these. These two terms seem to also be top-40 for AI vocab use. Bonus robot points for using it in a duo or trio series of adjectives. Duo featured below:
Example:
Live life at an unbothered, unhurried pace where you can soak it all in—in our brand new townhome layouts.
“…out loud.”
This one sounds out of the ordinary (particularly when overused) because of course a robot can’t say things out loud. Unless it’s been listening all along, and has suddenly chosen *this* moment to respond…
Example:
And suddenly this is what your brand is saying out loud. We’re exclusive.
“But here’s the thing” / “The good news is…” / “The only problem is…”
These lead ups are another faux-conversational attempt. There’s some melody to the cadence, but it’s been overused. More of that “between the two of us” sort of approach from AI.
Example:
But here’s the thing. This deal won’t last forever. But the good news is, we’re extending the leasing special for another week! The only problem now is…which apartment to choose?
“It’s not just X, it’s Y.”
This one set itself apart as an AI hallmark ages ago. AI loves a negative parallel structure. It feels balanced and creative. But it’s been done. And done and done.
Example:
It’s not just living, it’s thriving.
“That’s not a ___ problem, that’s a ___ problem.”
This one right here just chaps our hides. It cleverly points out the reader’s mistake for thinking it knows where to go next and turning it on its nose. But sometimes the reader already figured it out and this feels condescending as HECK.
Example:
That’s not a space problem, that’s a lifestyle problem.
OR
That’s not a budget problem, that’s a brand problem. (for all our marketers out there)
“The companies that win at this…” / “That’s a game nobody wins.”
The sweet smell of success! If only. This phrase treats everything like a game to be won. And business is a lot of strategy, but this little clause has had its 15 minutes. It’s done. This one happens more often for B2B, not B2C, but still.
Example:
The companies that win at this are the ones who know the difference between checking off a list and burning the list entirely.
“Try this with me real quick” / “Quick gut check”
Some more AI attempts at conversational tone. Admirable, but still obvious. This one shows up in social a lot, mostly as bait for readers to try to get them to keep reading. Just using the word “quick” feels like a promise that it’s not about to waste my time. (Spoiler: It absolutely did.)
Example:
Quick gut check: Am we the only ones who thinks apartments should be transparent with pet fees?
“This looks like __”
Yet another pandering and overly illustrative AI phrase. It’s usually followed with a strange simile or explain-y version of what it just said. If you (as a human writer) want to say something useful, just say it. “This looks like” is unnecessary fluff.
Example:
Your apartment will be your retreat. This looks like morning coffee on your porch, evening Netflix on your couch, and a personal spa day in your beautifully tiled bathroom.
“Bottom line:”
Another phrase that seeks to underscore a point—perhaps a little too heavily. One use, we understand. A second use gives us pause.
Example:
Bottom line: This community is the place for you.
More Signs of AI Slop, With Style
These little phrases and words above make AI slop a little easier to spot. But there are additional things to take note of. They’re generally style-based rather than distinct in word usage.
- AI tends to use similes or metaphors that sound simple at first, but then don’t add any extra meaning, especially because they’re tough to parse. (Reading it aloud might make you more confused.)
- AI writes in a way that brings a strange (or completely predictable) rhythm or cadence. After you’ve read a few sentences or paragraphs, you don’t feel the direction it’s going. There won’t be a climax. All the bumps/dips have been sanded down and replaced with a fabricated, patterned veneer. It simply doesn’t speak to you.
Why We’re Reconsidering Our Strategy
Humans should be front and center. We’re in the home business. Helping brand the places where people want to live. Want to rest, dream, build their families. Make memories. And when we hand that over to robots, we’re essentially saying, “Whatever you *think* is best, that’s good enough for us and for our residents.” But robots or artificial intelligence cannot think. It can only process.
You want to know something horrible? We were curious what it would come up with for apartment messaging, and this (paid subscription and all) is what it gave us:
“A place becomes a home the moment it holds more than one life.”
WHAT. Like. What? This means that single folks with no pets do not deserve a home? How does a home hold a life? No, guys. No.
Brand messaging is the difference between a resident choosing you versus your competitor—because we know that the amenities and offerings are looking awfully similar these days. Branding is the part that resonates with your ideal resident. Speak their language and be mindful of your messaging. Words matter, communications matter, brand consistency (with research and development behind it) is vital to reaching the folks who should be living in your community, making their home there, becoming friends with the neighbors and creating memories after a move. Marketing copy isn’t a throwaway task.
And no, we’re not dismissing AI wholesale and promising never to use it again. We’re just not willing to throw more AI slop out there when there’s so much competing for your attention already. It’s great at information gathering (as long as you fact-check) and helping parse information and develop research. GREAT for that. Five stars. Storytelling? Nah. Zero stars.
We consider our creativity one of, if not the most important parts of our brand, so we’ll continue to fight for it. Flex your creative muscle, even when it hurts (and that writer’s block can hurt like the dickens). Find ways to use AI that don’t add to the noise, but instead simplify. We want to bring easier brand solutions for multifamily, and we’re still figuring out the best way to do that.
P.S. Colleagues, clients, friends, feel free to call us out if you see the word “quietly” used in any of our content if we’re not talking about literal volume.