KPMG Report Hailed as Proof of AI Benefits -- Turns Out It Was Written by AI Hallucinations

A report praising the benefits of artificial intelligence appears to have been built entirely on AI hallucinations. The report, titled "Redefining Excellence in the Age of Agentic AI," was published by global consultancy giant KPMG. According to the Financial Times, multiple case studies in the document were fabricated. The report claimed, for instance, that Swiss railway company SBB offered AI agents to help users "plan, book and optimize travel based on preferences, real-time conditions and CO2 impact, transforming SBB into a holistic mobility manager." An SBB spokesperson told the FT this was not true. It also stated that Transport for London (TfL) uses AI agents "to predict and manage congestion, personalize travel information and coordinate multimodal transport." A TfL spokesperson called the claim "misleading." Further claims about Manchester hospitals using AI to predict admissions, triage patients, and automate referrals were found to conflict with the press releases they were supposedly based on. A Swiss bank UBS spokesperson described mentions of their AI usage as "factually incorrect." The hallucinations were uncovered by GPTZero, an organization that detects AI-generated content. Its CEO warned that publications like these poison public information, as data from such reports often gets reused in other articles and news pieces. KPMG has taken the report offline and launched an investigation. "We take the accuracy and integrity of our publications very seriously," a spokesperson said.