Reshmi Bennett, a baker serving London and Surrey in the United Kingdom, said one especially bloated artificial intelligence-style inquiry has pushed her to draw a line.
After getting a 784-word request for a 13th birthday cake with a £100 ($134) budget, she told SWNS she is considering a rule that would require AI-assisted briefs to come with at least £1 ($1.34) in budget for every word.
Here's what to know
Bennett, 42, has run Anges de Sucre for 16 years. Its custom work can reach £2,000 ($2,680), including a 6.6-foot-long (two-metre-long) Victoria sponge. The inquiry that sparked this reaction, however, was for a two-tier cake serving 10 people with only £100 to spend.
According to Bennett, these long, AI messages have become more common, even when the order itself is simple. She said the issue is that the briefs take time to get through while often failing to provide much of the practical information needed to move the order along.
"Reading is time, and I have to spend time dealing with enquiries, and if I'm having to spend more time dealing with enquiries, I'm basically working more for less, which sucks," Bennett said, per SWNS.
Bennett said she has no problem with customers sending visual inspiration, but she objects when AI turns a basic request into an overexplained write-up. In her view, many of those messages spend too much time on obvious points, including that the cake should taste good.
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More background
The message that prompted her complaint came in through WhatsApp and, she said, asked for a 13th birthday cake described as a "moist, delicious cake" with "thoughtfully placed hearts." To Bennett, wording like that suggests more effort may have gone into prompting a chatbot than into sharing the details a bakery actually needs.
Bennett said the company has three full-time staff members, so time spent working through padded inquiries comes out of a small team's day. In a business that size, unnecessary back-and-forth can cut into production, design, and customer service.
Her view is that tools meant to speed up communication can end up doing the opposite when the result is polished but vague.
Bennett said, "The picture did all the work, just tell me what flavour sponge you want."
From Bennett's perspective, custom cake work depends on time and craftsmanship, and AI-heavy requests can bury the basics while creating more unpaid work for the people expected to fulfill the order.
What's being done?
To reduce the time those requests consume, Bennett said she plans to introduce a new filter for AI-assisted briefs. Under the policy she is considering, the minimum budget would be £1 for every word in an AI-generated request.
She also wants to simplify the opening step of the order process. Instead of replying to essay-length inquiries right away, Bennett said she will first require four essentials: postcode, delivery date, budget, and portion count.
The idea is to get the practical information upfront so she can quickly tell whether an order is realistic.
She also offered direct advice for anyone tempted to outsource a cake request to ChatGPT:
"Whatever you're telling ChatGPT, tell me — because it makes such little sense to have so many words to explain so little."
She said a short message covering flavor, serving size, and delivery details is more useful than a long block of filler.
She said, "It's a cake; we're not redecorating Buckingham Palace here, it is literally just a cake."
Where can I learn more?
Bennett's complaint taps into a broader irritation with AI that feels more cumbersome than helpful. Other stories explore fights over AI pricing, bad assistant answers, annoying app features, and tech leaders confronting the backlash.
• In Pennsylvania, lawmakers moved to ban AI surveillance pricing so shoppers paid the same price.
• Google's assistant kept delivering wrong information, leaving one home cook with no confidence.
• Instagram users said annoying AI feature implementation made a familiar app feel exhausting.
• As layoffs mount, tech leaders proposed workers get paid when AI wipes out jobs.
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