James Allen of Billpin was quoted as a finance expert by outlets including CBS News, the New York Post and Business Insider. Qwoted later barred his account after flagging repeated AI-generated submissions and finding that he had failed its verification process, according to Press Gazette’s investigation.

The case is a stark warning about the source pipeline behind everyday newsroom copy. Qwoted, a U.S. platform that connects journalists with sources, says it has banned hundreds of agencies, executives and experts for conduct ranging from fabricated identities to AI-generated pitches and false claims of expertise.

Billpin’s website is now blank, and Allen’s LinkedIn profile has disappeared, Press Gazette reported. The publication said Allen did not respond to requests to verify his identity. Press Gazette concluded the operation appeared designed to win media mentions that could boost search rankings, or backlinks.

A quote in a respected publication can generate a link that helps an otherwise obscure website gain visibility in search results. That creates an incentive to manufacture expert identities that appear credible enough to earn media coverage.

Qwoted CEO Dan Simon said generative AI has dramatically accelerated an already difficult problem. “AI has just poured petrol on the disinformation fire,” he told Press Gazette.

The platform says it now handles more than 15 violations a day and blocks about 50 prospective clients from registering each day. Shelby Bridges, Qwoted’s head of user experience, said the volume of low-quality pitches began rising rapidly after ChatGPT’s public release in November 2022.

Simon described a source ecosystem that increasingly blurs the line between legitimate expertise and fabrication. “You’ve got real agencies representing fake experts with fake expertise. You’ve got real agencies with fake experts and real agencies with real experts with fake expertise, and fake agencies with fake experts with fake expertise.”

One recurring pattern is a purported expert responding to queries on subjects with no obvious connection to their background. Press Gazette identified examples of sources offering commentary on finance, cleaning, human resources, pet sitting and mental health.

Qwoted combines human review with signals such as unusually high pitching volumes. It also uses Pangram, an AI-content detection service, to flag potential abuse. But AI detection is only one signal. A model score cannot establish that a person is fictional, that a quote is false or that an expert lacks relevant experience. Qwoted’s reported checks therefore matter more than a detector’s output alone.

Simon said some reporters have told him they do not object to real experts using ChatGPT to polish their responses. The bigger risk comes when AI helps conceal a fabricated identity or invented credentials, allowing a bogus source to slip into print before anyone questions its legitimacy. Platforms can suspend accounts after the fact, but the final responsibility still rests with newsrooms.

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Trust in AI answers rises and falls with the credibility of their sources. More than 90% of people trusted an AI response when they completely trusted its cited source, but that figure plunged to about 10% when they completely distrusted the source, according to new findings reported by Press Gazette.

The figures come from an Ipsos survey of 1,000 UK adults for the Association of Online Publishers’ Artificial Intelligence Publisher Impact Study. The findings show that AI can distill reporting into a polished answer, but users ultimately judge that answer by the credibility of the news organization it cites.

The effect extended even to publishers respondents felt neutral about. Trust in the AI answer was only about 25% when the cited source was rated neither trusted nor distrusted. The survey measures correlation, not causation, and reflects stated attitudes rather than observed behavior. Even so, the pattern is unmistakable.

Trust also affected reported willingness to visit the underlying publisher. Nearly half of people who somewhat or completely trusted a cited source said they would click at least one link in an AI response. That finding fits a wider pattern covered in The Media Copilot’s reporting on news brands and AI clicks: the publisher’s name may still be what persuades users to leave the chatbot, even as AI interfaces give them fewer reasons to click elsewhere.

There is an uncomfortable counterpoint. Even when users completely trusted the cited source, nearly a third said they would stop at the AI answer rather than click through. That figure was similar among those who completely distrusted the source. A citation alone can make an AI answer more credible without delivering the visit, subscription opportunity, or advertising impression that paid for the original reporting.

The study also found that 37% of respondents did not know AI tools can fabricate information or sources. That rose to about 45% among 45- to 54-year-olds. The result matters because a polished answer can borrow authority from reputable citations while still getting a claim wrong, omitting context or inventing a detail.

AI companies have good reason to seek current, attributable reporting. OpenAI’s partnership with News Corp is one public example of the licensing deals that give chatbots access to professional journalism. Yet the confidentiality of many licensing deals makes it difficult for publishers to know whether they are being fairly compensated for the credibility their reporting brings to AI answers.

For newsrooms, the immediate task is less about winning back every lost referral than preserving the conditions that make their reporting worth citing. Clear attribution, strong archive pages, distinctive analysis and direct audience relationships matter when an AI answer becomes the first read. Publishers also need to decide which crawlers and products earn access.

The survey’s implication is clear. AI platforms are borrowing trust that publishers spent decades building, while publishers risk capturing only a fraction of the value it creates. As AI answers become the default gateway to information, the rules governing licensing, attribution and publisher control will determine whether publishers can still turn trust into revenue.

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