A Big Four auditor gets into a high-profile scandal over the use of AI

A global big four auditor will pay the Australian government for mistakes in its report made by artificial intelligence. Deloitte, one of the largest international audit corporations, has admitted that it used neural networks in its work, reports Associated Press.

The company will return a portion of the A$440,000 ($290,000) it received for preparing a report on an audit of Australia's national system that manages social security and unemployment benefits.

The audit was commissioned by the Australian Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR). Deloitte submitted a 237-page report based on its findings. Among the numerous errors found in the document was a fictitious quote from a federal court decision, as well as references to non-existent scientific studies.

Deloitte has reviewed its own report and "confirmed that some footnotes and references were incorrect," DEWR said in a statement .

Earlier, Chris Rudge, a researcher at the University of Sydney, said he found at least 20 errors in the document. In his opinion, the report was prepared using AI from Azure OpenAI.

The day before, it became known about Deloitte's strategic partnership with the American Anthropic. According to the latter, their Claude model will be available to nearly 500,000 Deloitte employees worldwide.

This is the largest corporate implementation of Claude to date. Deloitte emphasized that it is betting on responsible artificial intelligence and intends to implement AI in all internal and client processes.

• In early October 2025, the American artificial intelligence corporation OpenAI surpassed the aerospace company SpaceX and became the largest startup in the world with an estimated value of $500 billion.