For the past few years, the eLearning industry has been chasing a dream: press a button, get a complete course. AI would do all the work. You'd input a topic, wait a few seconds, and out would come a fully-formed learning experience.

We built that. Everyone built that. And the result was slop.

What Is eLearning Slop?

You know it when you see it. Generic learning objectives that could apply to anything. Stock scenarios that feel like they were written by a committee. Quiz questions that test whether you read the text, not whether you learned anything. Content that's technically accurate but fundamentally lifeless.

Slop is what happens when AI generates without context. When it produces content that looks like training but doesn't actually train anyone.

For years, we assumed the problem was the AI. Better models would fix it. GPT-4 would be better than GPT-3.5. The next version would be better still. Eventually, AI would just "get it right."

We were wrong about where to look.

The Missing Piece Was Never Better Generation

Here's what we finally figured out: the quality of AI-generated content isn't determined by the first output. It never was. It's determined by what happens after generation.

Think about how humans create great training. Nobody writes a perfect first draft. Instructional designers iterate. They review, revise, get feedback, and refine. The first version is always a starting point, not a destination.

But when AI generates a full course, most tools treat that as the end of the process. You get your output, and then you're on your own—manually editing slides, rewriting text by hand, fighting against the tool instead of working with it.

That's where slop comes from. Not from bad generation, but from the friction that prevents good iteration.

The Iteration Loop Changes Everything

At Mindsmith, we still generate full courses. You can absolutely press a button and get a complete lesson in seconds. That part works great.

But we built something else: a co-agent that can edit your entire lesson, over and over, as many times as you need.

This changes the game completely.

Don't like the tone? Tell the agent to make it more conversational—and watch the whole lesson transform. Scenarios feel generic? Ask for industry-specific examples—every single one updates. Content too basic for your audience? The agent adjusts the complexity across every page.

You're not editing individual text blocks. You're having a conversation with an AI that understands your entire lesson and can reshape it holistically based on your feedback.

Why This Unslops Everything

The slop problem was never about AI capability. It was about iteration speed.

When iterations are slow—when you have to manually edit each slide, rewrite each paragraph, tweak each quiz question—you settle. You accept "good enough" because making it great isn't worth the effort. Slop wins by attrition.

When iterations are fast, when you can reshape your entire lesson with a single instruction, you never have to settle. You keep refining until the content is genuinely good.

"Add more focus on customer objections." Done. "Make the quiz questions scenario-based." Done. "This section assumes too much prior knowledge." Fixed.

Each iteration takes seconds. So you iterate until it's right.

Enterprise Friendly Iteration

When you hear about AI getting better as you work with it, you may have some questions. Does that mean they're training on my data? What are they keeping and sharing with others? We never share your data with other customers and your data is not used to train AI models. We view the most powerful lever we can do as a platform is help you get the right content in front of an already very smart AI. As you continue talking with that AI, its already caught up to speed and ready to help you make the changes needed to make your learning engaging.

The Co-Agent Difference

Our agent doesn't just edit—it understands. It asks about your learners, your objectives, your context. Who's taking this training? What do they already know? What should they be able to do afterward?

This context flows through every edit. When you ask for changes, the agent doesn't just follow instructions mechanically—it applies your goals intelligently across the entire lesson.

You're not fighting the tool. You're collaborating with an AI that knows what you're trying to accomplish and helps you get there faster.

The Real Revolution

The eLearning industry spent years waiting for AI to generate perfect courses on the first try. That was never going to happen. Perfect first drafts don't exist—not from humans, not from AI.

The revolution is AI that iterates with you. AI that takes your full course and reshapes it based on your expertise. AI that makes the gap between "generated content" and "great content" a matter of minutes instead of hours.

That's how you kill slop. Not with better generation, but with relentless iteration.

How to Get the Most Out of Your AI

The secret to great AI-generated training isn't clever prompting or finding the right settings. It's simpler than that: add more context in every iteration.

Each time you review your lesson and ask for changes, you're teaching the AI what you actually need. That feedback is context. And context is what transforms generic content into something specific to your learners, your organization, and your goals.

Don't just say "make it better." Say why it's not working:

• "Our sales team already knows the basics—skip the intro content and focus on advanced objection handling."

• "These scenarios are too corporate. Our culture is more casual—make them feel like real conversations."

• "The quiz questions are too easy. Our learners need to apply these concepts, not just recall them."

Every piece of context you add makes the next iteration smarter. The AI learns that your audience is experienced. It learns your tone. It learns what "good" means for this specific training.

This is the fundamental shift in how to work with AI: stop expecting perfect outputs and start expecting perfect collaboration. The more you put in, the more you get out. The more you iterate, the less slop remains.

Your expertise plus AI speed equals training that actually works.

At Mindsmith: Using the Agent to Edit Your Lesson

Ready to try it? Here's how the iteration loop works in practice.

Once you've generated a lesson (or opened an existing one), you'll see the Agent toolbar in your editor. This is your direct line to the AI—a place to have a conversation about your content.

Start by reviewing your lesson. Scroll through the pages. Notice what's working and what isn't. Maybe the opening feels too generic. Maybe the scenarios don't match your industry. Maybe the whole thing is pitched at the wrong level.

Then tell the agent what to change. Click into the agent toolbar and describe what you want—in plain language, just like you'd tell a colleague. The agent reads your entire lesson, understands the structure, and applies your feedback across every relevant page.

A few examples of what you might say:

• "Make this more engaging for healthcare workers—use clinical scenarios instead of generic office examples."

• "The tone is too formal. We're a startup—make it more conversational and direct."

• "Add a knowledge check after each major concept."

• "This assumes people know what a CRM is. Add context for beginners."

Watch the lesson update. The agent doesn't just tweak one paragraph—it reshapes the entire lesson based on your direction. Scenarios change. Examples update. The tone shifts throughout.

Repeat until it's right. Review the changes. Like some parts but not others? Tell the agent. Want to push further in a particular direction? Tell the agent. Each iteration builds on the last, and each piece of feedback makes the result more precisely what you need.

That's the whole process: generate, review, iterate. No exports, no manual rewrites, no fighting with the tool. Just conversation and refinement until your lesson is exactly what your learners need.

Mindsmith is an AI-powered eLearning authoring platform that generates full courses and then helps you perfect them. Our co-agent can edit your entire lesson based on natural language feedback, turning AI-generated starting points into polished training through fast, frictionless iteration.