AI is not the future of internal controls; AI is already here. Is your organisation prepared to embrace it?
AI is already here
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is the application of autonomously driven Machine decisions that can identify outliers or exceptions. The term describes computing systems that exhibit some form of heuristic-driven intelligence; it covers several interlinked technologies, including machine learning, speech recognition, image recognition(OCR), data mining and sentiment analysis.
In some instances, machine learning automatically detects erroneous accounting entries coding. By creating machine learning models containing Journal Entry heuristics and descriptors, auditors can also improve fraud detection processes.
Deep learning has further transformed the audit process. Now making it possible for auditors to work better and smarter. AI can analyse unstructured data such as images, videos, sensor readings, emails, social media posts and conference call audio files. An example of how AI is used in audits is in automated contract reviews; machine learning tools allow auditors and management to analyse a more significant number of contracts, such as commodities, Manufacturing supplies or leases, in a much shorter time frame than possible with a traditional human manual review.
AI is helping Internal control professionals, Financial Management and Internal Auditors to optimise their time. Enabling them to use their human judgement to analyse a broader and deeper set of data and documents and finally allowing them to ask better questions to interact more with CFOs, audit committees and company boards.
All this adds value to the audit process. In this way, AI could provide better quality audits and insights for more real-time and relevant risk-based information for Directors and external auditors.
How is your company adapting to AI-driven audits? We can assess and help you get there!