The publisher of Sports Illustrated has fired its chief executive shortly after an investigative report claimed the American magazine had published stories by fake authors with headshots generated by artificial intelligence.

The Arena Group announced it had terminated Ross Levinsohn’s contract with immediate effect, and named Manoj Bhargava as interim chief executive officer.

Futurism, a science and technology title, published an investigation in November that accused Sports Illustrated of using machine technology to invent biographies for journalists. Arena Group responded by saying its own internal review suggested Futurism’s story was “not accurate”.

It made no mention of the investigation when announcing the termination of Levinsohn. In a statement, Arena said the board had taken action “to improve the operational efficiency and revenue of the company”.

“This follows actions last week, in which the company terminated the employment of operations president and COO Andrew Kraft, media president Rob Barrett, and corporate counsel Julie Fenster.”

Futurism traced the provenance of a profile for a Sports Illustrated contributor called Drew Ortiz and discovered the headshot came from a website selling AI-generated photographs. Ortiz was described on Sports Illustrated’s website as a writer who “grew up in a farmhouse, surrounded by woods, fields and a creek”. However, the original picture for Ortiz described the image as “neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes”.

One article attached to Ortiz’s name appeared to fall short of the standards achieved by real journalists.

The story read: “Volleyball is one of the most popular sports in the world, and for good reason. It’s fast-paced, has a high skill ceiling, and is generally an exciting sport to both play and watch. Even people who don’t watch sports can easily understand the intensity and skill required to play volleyball whenever they watch clips. There’s a reason why it’s been such a mainstay in modern sports to this day.”

Levinsohn announced earlier this year that Arena Group would start to use AI to generate articles, but that the initiative was “not going to replace the art of creating content”. He told the Wall Street Journal: “It’s giving the content creators, whether they’re writers or social creators, real efficiency and real access to the archives we have.”

At the time of the Futurism investigation, Arena said that the articles were sourced commercial content from a third-party advertising company, AdVon Commerce.

It said: “AdVon has assured us that all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans … However, we have learned that AdVon had writers use a pen or pseudo name in certain articles to protect author privacy — actions we strongly condemn — and we are removing the content while our internal investigation continues and have since ended the partnership.”

Sports Illustrated was first published in 1954 and is best-known for its annual swimsuit issue, featuring celebrities in bikinis, although it has also published contributions from noted authors including William Faulkner, Robert Frost, John Steinbeck and John Updike.