The case of the smoking bullet point: Qantas admits to ChatGPT use ‘for formatting’
Qantas has confirmed it used AI-generated resources in an email to 5.7 million customers affected by a recent cyber attack.
At the start of July, the airline first acknowledged the attack, in which a “significant” amount of customer data — including names, phone numbers, dates of birth, email addresses, and Frequent Flyer details — were stolen.
Shortly after the data breach, Qantas sent an email to affected customers on behalf of CEO Vanessa Hudson. The email included a bullet point list of the types of data exposed.
First noticed by Mastodon user Adam Kent, and as first reported in tech newsletter The Sizzle, the bullet points used were not normal characters but embedded image files. Analysis of the files’ metadata revealed they came from ChatGPT.
This is a tell-tale sign of using the AI language model to create content. When asked for comment, Qantas told Mumbrella that the bullets had been left over from a formatting process. It said that ChatGPT had not been used to write the bullet point list or the rest of the email.
The bullet points in question. (The Sizzle)
Qantas has been under fire for its handling of the recent attack, with several critical questions left unaddressed in its initial response, outlined by crisis PR expert Phoebe Netto earlier this month.
It was the latest PR nightmare for the Australian airline in as many years, following the illegal sacking of ground staff during the pandemic, the selling of ‘ghost flights’ to 86,000 Australians, and a damning third-party review that saw CEO Alan Joyce stripped of millions in bonuses, before leaving the airline.
As seen in Roy Morgan rankings, Qantas has gone from one of the country’s most trusted brands to one of the most distrusted. Roy Morgan measures both trust and distrust: they are different metrics.
In June 2022, Qantas was ranked sixth in trust, behind Woolworths, Coles, Bunnings, Aldi, and Kmart. By the September quarter that year, it slipped to ninth. In December 2022, it had plummeted to 40th.
In terms of distrust, in June 2023, Qantas was the 13th most distrusted brand in Australia, and by September 2024, it had become the second most distrusted.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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