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When AI stops hallucinating, where will that leave consultants?

The errors in Deloitte’s AI-assisted report were fixable. The existential threat to the consulting industry is not

    • AI systems that once struggled with basic analysis are already handling more sophisticated analytical work – the kind on which consulting firms have long staked their reputations.
    • AI systems that once struggled with basic analysis are already handling more sophisticated analytical work – the kind on which consulting firms have long staked their reputations. PHOTO: BT FILE
    Joyce Hooi
    Published Wed, Oct 15, 2025 · 07:00 AM

    IT HAS been a gratifying time for people who delight in denouncing “artificial intelligence (AI) slop”, especially since Deloitte Australia recently handed them yet more ammunition. The consulting firm has to partially refund the Australian government for work done on a A$440,000 (S$370,000) report, after an academic found that the work contained multiple errors caused by the use of AI. 

    According to The Australian Financial Review, the report, commissioned for the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR), included non-existent academic references and a “made-up quote” from a court judgment. 

    The report has since been corrected, and the DEWR has maintained that the errors had no bearing on the report’s substance and recommendations. 

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