{"id":10486,"date":"2025-07-21T09:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T09:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/10486\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T09:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T09:04:12","slug":"qantas-using-ai-for-email-template-to-hack-victims-a-risky-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/10486\/","title":{"rendered":"Qantas using AI for email template to hack victims a “risky move”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Qantas says it used assets generated by ChatGPT for an email it sent to customers affected by a massive data breach<\/a>, in a \u201crisky\u201d move questioned by a crisis communications expert.<\/p>\n

Australian technology newsletter The Sizzle <\/a>on Sunday confirmed OpenAI technology was used to create a letter written by Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson and sent to victims of this month\u2019s call centre hack.<\/p>\n

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Data revealed in the breach includes names, addresses, email addresses, and Qantas Frequent Flyer numbers.<\/p>\n

The letter, telling Qantas customers what kinds of data was accessed, used a bullet point list.<\/p>\n

Metadata analysis showed the bullet point icons were sourced from ChatGPT.<\/p>\n

A Qantas spokesperson confirmed to The Sizzle that AI tools were used to format the letter, but not to create the text itself.<\/p>\n

An airline representative told SmartCompany ChatGPT was used to create the email template, and reiterated that AI was not responsible for creating any statements attributed to Hudson.<\/p>\n

AI text generation is growing in popularity, and brands are using standalone chatbots or tools built into their customer relationship management platforms to create emails, advertisements, and product listings.<\/p>\n

But using AI to help build crisis communications \u2014 which is designed to establish or rebuild trust after a major incident \u2014 could cause further problems, said public affairs and crisis management expert Sally Branson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is, not all Australians are on board with AI,\u201d Branson told SmartCompany.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still a great deal of fear and suspicion. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when you combine that with an already existing data leak, it\u2019s a risky move.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no suggestion that any of the information contained in the recent Qantas email is incorrect, misleading, or the product of an AI hallucination.<\/p>\n

Even so, Branson said the 5.7 million Qantas customers whose personal data was exposed might expect a different kind of response.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen you\u2019ve got a message of this magnitude from a CEO who\u2019s being paid a lot of money, supported by a communications department also being paid a lot of money, it\u2019s a different story,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Consumers might think: \u201cAm I not worthy of her sitting down and writing a letter? Am I only worth a computer-generated response?\u201d.<\/p>\n

Increasingly, communication experts are using AI tools to \u2018sense check\u2019 copy, evaluate tone of voice, and highlight overly-emotive language.<\/p>\n

In the future, Australians are going to see \u201cmore and more\u201d of this automated \u2018sentiment evaluation\u2019, said Branson.<\/p>\n

However, it can still be jarring for readers to learn important messages were fine-tuned using AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil AI is more widely accepted, especially in crisis situations, we want authenticity,\u201d said Branson.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the last definition of authenticity is: \u2018I put it into ChatGPT and it spat something out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Qantas email also shows not all brands are aware of the small and hidden details in their AI-generated text.<\/p>\n

AI critics say the overuse of em dashes, and a reliance on bullet point lists can indicate whether AI was used to generate copy.<\/p>\n

The .PNG metadata example suggests businesses ought to look even deeper if they want their copy to carry the human touch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Qantas says it used assets generated by ChatGPT for an email it sent to customers affected by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,12459,12460,3861,105],"class_list":["post-10486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-breach","tag-hack","tag-qantas","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}