Papers not in PwC report, government clients that don’t exist... hallucinated footnotes found by AI detection firms

GPTZero and the Financial Times found that some PwC Middle East reports published between 2024 and 2026 cited papers, articles, and reports that do not appear to exist.

The disputed documents were client-facing thought leadership materials, not audit reports, and they also included unverified government adoption claims and footnotes showing signs of ChatGPT generation.

PwC Middle East said it is correcting some citations, but it has not withdrawn the reports.

The case highlights growing concerns over the credibility of external reports from major consulting firms and the need for tighter AI-era verification standards.