Overview
- KPMG pulled its global report, Redefining Excellence in the Age of Agentic AI, after organisations named in the paper disputed specific operational claims and asked for them to be removed.
- Errors in several case studies were first flagged by AI-detection firm GPTZero and then corroborated by reporting from the Financial Times, which found some examples appeared to be AI hallucinations.
- Clients named in the report, including UBS, NHS Greater Manchester, Swiss Federal Railways and Transport for London, publicly rejected KPMG’s descriptions and called the claims inaccurate or misleading.
- KPMG said it has launched an internal investigation and warned staff may have broken the firm’s AI-use rules while stressing the need for human oversight and source verification in published research.
- The episode follows a recent EY withdrawal for similar AI-related errors and raises wider risks for consultancies, with likely consequences for how firms verify research, manage client relations and formalise AI governance.