Accenture has said it will correct a paper about the potential of AI in agriculture in Africa, after AI detection organisation GPTZero found that it was littered with errors that GPTZero attributed to the use of AI.

Accenture denied there was any evidence to support that the errors were the result of AI malfunctions, claiming they were the result of human error, but said the November 2025 report would be corrected and re-released.

The consultancy declined to say how it decided the errors were made or why it believed AI malfunctions were not involved.

Nonexistent references

Edward Tian, co-founder of GPTZero, said the errors “overwhelmingly” consistent with AI malfunctions, which he said commonly result in references that appear credible but don’t exist, plausible-sounding but fictional organisations and case studies which are fabricated. The earlier reported the blunder.

Among other errors, the paper makes two references to technology hosted by an organisation called SAATN, referenced as the “Southern Africa AgriTech Network” or the “Southern African Agriculture Transformation Network”, neither of which appear to exist.

The paper “Leapfrogging Development: Unlocking Africa’s Potential in Global Value Chains with Artificial Intelligence” was co-published by Accenture and Spanish university IE University, with two of its four authors and both editors being staff from Accenture.