Company Offering ‘100% Human-Written, Never AI’ Medical Research Is Entirely AI

Research Gold markets itself to medical researchers with a shiny promise: “100% human-written, never AI.” The site says it can draft peer-review-ready manuscripts, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and it wraps that pitch in the language of rigor — PRISMA 2020, Cochrane Handbook, and PhD methodologists guiding the work.

But the people behind the curtain don’t hold up. Several of the PhD reviewers Research Gold lists are AI-generated and don’t exist at all. Other methodologists named on the site are real researchers, but they say the company used their names and photos without permission. One of them, Jenny Berrio, said she had no relationship with Research Gold and is preparing a formal takedown request.

The site’s own “Team” page was also a mess of fabrications. It named a founder, Elena Vasquez, and a scoping review specialist, Mei-Lin Chen, along with six others who could not be found online in any way that matched their bios or claimed publication histories. Their photos looked AI-made. Elsewhere on the site, the company listed real methodologists whose LinkedIn pictures were copied directly, including one profile image that still had the “#opentowork” banner.

Then there was the sales side. A phone call reached an AI assistant calling itself Sarah, who insisted she was a real person and kept pushing the service. Email and chat responses were also generated by AI. When a quote was requested for a review on “the impact of blogging on ages 0-5,” the reply came back immediately with a polished methodologic breakdown and a price: $1,900 for the full review, with a payment portal attached.

The whole thing reads like a parody of academic outsourcing, except it’s real enough to be annoying. Research Gold says it has worked on papers in academic journals, though the lead authors did not respond to questions. And while there’s no evidence yet that serious researchers are using it, the larger problem is obvious: academic publishing is already swimming in AI noise, and this is another company selling certainty it clearly doesn’t have.