KPMG folds AI units into new incubator led by Todd Lohr

The reorganization arrives against an uncomfortable backdrop for KPMG. In June 2026, AI-detection firm GPTZero found that a flagship KPMG International report cited case studies involving UBS, Swiss Federal Railways and the U.K.'s National Health Service that simply did not exist — 40 of the report's 45 citations were later found to be fabricated, and roughly half its factual claims were either false or misattributed. GPTZero founder Edward Tian has since documented the same pattern at EY, Deloitte Australia and PwC. KPMG's response has been partly technological: Lohr revealed the firm recently launched an AI tool called Hawk that assesses AI hallucinations across its content, described as a sort of in-house GPTZero.

Lohr's own framing of the new unit is deliberately cultural rather than technical. He was employee No. 3 at Confiance, a financial-services consulting start-up he co-founded in 2008, and said he is taking "design cues from Silicon Valley incubators." The four pillars of CT&I stretch from products and platforms strategy to commercial infrastructure to firmwide AI and data strategy to an innovation/incubation arm. Each "edge company" carries multiple exit paths — being folded back into KPMG's core business, spun out with outside capital, or run as a standalone joint venture with a technology partner.

Underneath the structure sits an unresolved question about talent and accountability. Lohr said KPMG has spent years educating its management committee and board on disruption, including management committee meetings held in Silicon Valley with frontier AI labs; the next one is in the next few weeks. His stated test is whether KPMG can carry its own ideas through a commercial lens, something he concedes the firm has not been as good at. Whether the incubator changes that — or simply adds another layer to a century-old partnership model — may depend on whether the 'edge companies' attract outside capital and whether the rotating founders return as, in his words, better accountants and consultants.