While artificial intelligence has intrigued humans for centuries, it was not until the past few years that AI has undergone explosive growth in every field, led by advances in deep learning.
According to a study conducted by Big Four firm KPMG in March and September 2024, the rate of AI adoption by companies worldwide, especially in their financial reporting processes, is expected to more than double over the next three years.
The KPMG study also found that many organizations expect their auditors to utilize AI tools for their auditing processes. The most common audit activities cited as conducive to AI usage by the study respondents were data analysis, risk identification and mitigation, predictive analysis, and faster audit processes.
Auditors looking to leverage the benefits presented by AI have been exploring the integration of emerging technologies into traditional audit practices. One example of this integration is AI-powered audit analytics. These technologies may be fertile ground from which auditors can generate added value. By incorporating AI and data analytics, auditors can enhance their audit results, while providing their clients with deeper insights into their financial health and operational performance.
Below are six benefits that AI-powered audit analytics can offer both auditors and their clients.
Value for auditors
- Enhanced efficiency and accuracy: AI-powered audit analytics tools allow auditors to analyze large volumes of data quickly and accurately. Traditional auditing methods often rely on sampling, which can miss significant outliers or trends. By comparison, AI-driven analytics allow for the examination of entire data populations, ensuring a more comprehensive and precise audit. This, in turn, improves the accuracy of the audit and can reduce the time required to complete it, while freeing staff time for more value-adding tasks.
- Improved risk assessment: One key advantage of AI-powered audit analytics is its ability to enhance risk assessment. Artificial intelligence can help auditors better understand the risk environment of their clients by analyzing historical data and identifying trends. This enables auditors to focus on high-risk areas, leading to a more targeted and effective audit.
- Comprehensive testing and data visualization: As mentioned above, AI-powered audit analytics facilitates comprehensive testing by allowing auditors to analyze entire data sets rather than relying on samples. This comprehensive approach increases the likelihood of detecting misstatements or errors. AI-driven data visualization tools can also help auditors present complex data in an easily understandable format. Dashboards and graphical representations make it simpler to communicate findings to clients, fostering better understanding and collaboration.
Value for clients
- Insightful business analysis for clients: As highlighted by the KPMG study, clients can also greatly benefit from the insights offered by AI-powered audit analytics. These tools can highlight operational inefficiencies, financial irregularities and areas for improvement. By sharing these analytics results with clients, auditors can assist clients in utilizing insights to make informed decisions to enhance their business operations and financial health. Additionally, the detailed reports generated through AI-powered audit analytics can provide clients with a clear, transparent view of their financial position, fostering trust and confidence in the audit process.
- Enhanced transparency and proactive issue resolution: Another benefit of AI-powered audit analytics for clients is increased transparency by providing a detailed and accurate view of financial data. This transparency helps clients better understand their financial position and the factors influencing their performance. The enhanced predictive power also allows clients to identify potential issues early, so they can be addressed proactively before they escalate into major problems.
- Better communication and collaboration: Finally, the visual and detailed reports generated through AI-powered audit analytics can facilitate better communication between auditors and clients. Auditors present audit findings in a way clients can more easily grasp, leading to more productive discussions and collaborative problem-solving. This improved communication drives value for clients, helping to build stronger relationships between auditors and clients based on mutual understanding and trust.
By leveraging AI-powered audit analytics, auditors can enhance their efficiency, accuracy and risk assessment capabilities, while offering clients valuable business insights, transparency and improved collaboration. These technologies are not just tools for improving audit quality but for driving stronger, more productive business relationships.
