As pressure grows on professionals to maintain a visible presence on LinkedIn, more workers are entering the world of professional posting without much guidance on how to do it well. Some turn to AI when they run out of ideas, while others risk being dismissed for producing content that sounds machine-generated.

In a difficult job market, where workers can struggle to move from one job to another, LinkedIn is becoming more than an online CV and an Easy Apply portal. It is increasingly a networking tool that professionals need even when they are not actively looking for work, particularly as layoffs can suddenly put them back into the job market.

But becoming more visible online can also create problems at work.

Patrick, a sales professional who also works in real estate on the side, used LinkedIn to promote his property business and a newsletter he launched. This summer, he says a manager asked him to make his LinkedIn profile more focused on his main job after concerns circulated within the company that he might be dividing his working time between the two careers.

Patrick had never hidden his side business, but the experience changed how he approached LinkedIn. He became less willing to post about his work outside the company.

“Putting your head down and building a network at a company, then hoping that same network will help you get your next job, is super short-sighted,” says J.T. O’Donnell, founder of career coaching platform Work It Daily.

According to Business Insider, recruiters are increasingly moving away from openly advertising every position and towards what has been described as “quiet hiring”, where they search platforms such as LinkedIn for potential candidates. That makes it increasingly important for workers to demonstrate what they can do beyond their current job title.

The changing relationship between employers and employees has also altered the way people approach job hunting. Building a personal network is no longer something reserved for founders, executives or influencers. It is becoming relevant to almost everyone.

The rise of the LinkedIn post

LinkedIn has spent the past decade developing from a professional networking site into a broader social media platform. It has introduced video, creator tools and skills training, while traffic increased following the exodus from Twitter after Elon Musk acquired the platform in 2022.

According to Similarweb data cited by Business Insider, traffic to LinkedIn has increased by nearly 16% over the past three years. LinkedIn says its user base has grown from 875 million in October 2022 to more than 1.3 billion today. The platform now sees around 1.7 million posts every minute, while the number of creators almost doubled between 2021 and 2025.

The growth has also produced a familiar problem: people are increasingly making fun of LinkedIn’s highly polished, motivational style.

The platform has become known for lengthy posts in which business lessons are supposedly extracted from everything from parenting to children’s football matches. Reddit communities have turned such posts into comedy, while comedians have created LinkedIn accounts dedicated to parodying the platform’s hustle-and-grind culture.

AI has made the situation more complicated.

With generative AI making it easier to produce lengthy professional posts, the amount of apparently machine-written content has increased. Pangram, an AI-detection company, analysed content across LinkedIn, Medium, X, Reddit and Substack and found that LinkedIn had the highest proportion of content it identified as likely AI-generated. More than 30% of posts were classified as fully AI-written, while almost a quarter of comments were also flagged.

The criticism has intensified as LinkedIn has incorporated more AI into its own products, including tools for editing CVs and generating comments, posts and cover letters.

The same technology has also complicated recruitment. AI makes it easier for job seekers to submit large numbers of applications, potentially overwhelming employers with CVs that offer little evidence of an individual’s personality or suitability.

LinkedIn responded with an AI-powered job-matching feature that assesses whether a candidate is likely to be a strong or weak match for a position. Instead of simply encouraging users to apply for every job, the platform now provides an assessment before they submit their application.

Fighting the ‘AI slop’

LinkedIn wants users to post and engage more, but it also has an interest in preventing AI-generated content from overwhelming the platform.

The company removed its “enhance your post” AI-writing feature in July and introduced a way for users to flag posts that appear to be AI-generated. Since then, LinkedIn says the system has correctly identified AI-generated “slop” 94% of the time, while views of such content have fallen by 40%, according to Business Insider.

LinkedIn executives have acknowledged the tension. Hari Srinivasan, the company’s chief product officer, said the company plans to introduce an AI proofreading feature designed to improve posts without removing the writer’s individual voice.

There is a straightforward reason people are turning to AI. Maintaining a regular posting schedule can feel like an additional, unpaid responsibility. If workers are already comfortable using AI to help with tasks at work, they may also see little reason not to use it on a professional networking platform.

Yet the pressure to post creates another problem: what is safe to say publicly?

When visibility becomes a liability

LinkedIn is full of workplace influencers, but some of the subjects they discuss can make other professionals nervous about engaging with them.

Maureen Wiley Clough, host of the podcast It Gets Late Early, regularly writes about ageism in corporate life. She says followers sometimes tell her privately that they would like to engage with her posts but are worried their employers might see them.

Even something as simple as a “like” can feel risky if an employer interprets it as an expression of political, cultural or professional views.

That creates a tension between the culture LinkedIn encourages and the cultures inside individual workplaces. A post that helps build a personal brand could also alienate a current manager or a future employer.

The safest strategy may therefore be less about becoming an influencer and more about quietly demonstrating expertise.

“Recruiters are not looking for thought leaders,” says Michelle Volberg, founder and CEO of recruiting software company Twill. They are looking for evidence that candidates have expertise and practical skills.

Volberg says she pays little attention to whether a post has four likes or 400. A post that appears to disappear into the feed can still be noticed by a recruiter researching a potential candidate.

“You might not be [posting] to the void,” she says, because someone may eventually come across your profile and look through your work.

Career experts do not expect LinkedIn’s importance to disappear anytime soon. If anything, the platform is becoming more central to professional life.

The challenge for LinkedIn is to make the platform useful without turning it into an endless stream of artificial personal branding. And for workers, the challenge is equally complicated: stay visible, demonstrate what you can do and build a network, without allowing the pursuit of professional visibility to create problems at work.

Love it or hate it, LinkedIn is becoming harder to ignore.