A partner at the consultancy KPMG has been fined for using artificial intelligence to cheat during an internal training course on AI.
The unnamed partner was fined A$10,000 (£5,200) for using the technology to cheat, one of a number of staff reportedly using the tactic.
More than two dozen KPMG Australia staff have been caught using AI tools to cheat on internal exams since July, the company said, increasing concerns over AI-fuelled cheating in accountancy firms.
The consultancy used its own AI detection tools to discover the cheating, according to the Australian Finance Review, which first reported on it.
The big four accountancy firms have grappled with cheating scandals in recent years. In 2021, KPMG Australia was fined A$615,000 over “widespread” misconduct, after it was found that more than 1,100 partners had been involved in “improper answer-sharing” on tests designed to assess skill and integrity.
But AI tools have introduced new possibilities for rule-breaking. In December, the UK’s largest accounting body, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), said it would require accounting students to take exams in person, because otherwise it was too difficult to stop AI cheating.
Helen Brand, the chief executive of the ACCA, said at the time that AI tools had led to a “tipping point” as the use of them was outpacing safeguards against cheating put in place by the association.
Firms such as KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers have also been mandating their staff to use AI at work, reportedly in an effort to boost profits and cut costs.
KPMG partners will reportedly be assessed on their ability to use AI tools during their 2026 performance reviews, with the firm’s global AI workforce lead, Niale Cleobury, saying: “We all have a responsibility to be bringing AI to all of our work.”
Some commenters on LinkedIn noted the irony in using AI to cheat in AI training. KPMG is “fighting AI adoption instead of redesigning how they train people. This is a not a cheating problem – if we look at the new world order. This is a training problem,” wrote Iwo Szapar, the creator of a platform that ranks organisations’ “AI maturity”.
KPMG said it had adopted measures to identify the use of AI by its staff and would keep track of how many of its workers misused the technology.
Andrew Yates, the chief executive of KPMG Australia, said: “Like most organisations, we have been grappling with the role and use of AI as it relates to internal training and testing. It’s a very hard thing to get on top of given how quickly society has embraced it.
“Given the everyday use of these tools, some people breach our policy. We take it seriously when they do. We are also looking at ways to strengthen our approach in the current self-reporting regime.”
