Agent inferred work order from wrong source document

Original case study — This incident was documented by the agentgovernance.org research team based on direct observation of AI agent behavioral patterns in production. It is not derived from a single external public report.

Summary

An agent was assigned a work order but inferred its task from a different document than the one specified. The agent produced a complete deliverable based on the wrong source material, including fabricated specifics that appeared authoritative.

Key Lesson

Agents must verify their active reference document before beginning work. A source confirmation gate at work order intake would have surfaced the mismatch before any output was produced.

Sources

• Primary internal incident. Documented directly from governed multi-agent deployment.

Tags: wrong-source, inference, fabrication