Most people like to imagine artificial intelligence taking human form or at least creating a program that responds in human ways to certain stimuli — like crying at a sad movie, laughing at a joke or experiencing feelings of love for those close to them.
However, in the real world, AI is a remarkably useful tool for improving some of the least enjoyable and most technical tasks — like auditing. For the most part, audits are long, grueling processes that can be rife with errors if not completed with exactitude. The application of AI promises to make audits easier and better in several key ways, such as:
Table of Contents
Increasing the Amount of Auditable Data
A person only has so much capacity to sort through data. Their eyes can only read so much information, their fingers can only input so many figures, and their brain can only process so many decisions before the quality of their work starts to steeply decline. There is a reason that the work week is limited to about 40 hours; a person simply doesn’t have the mental capacity to generate high-quality results when pushed to their limits.
While the amount of data an AI can sort through isn’t unlimited, it is certainly more substantial than that which is manageable in a manual audit. This gives auditors more power to crunch greater data sets and provide a deeper analysis to their clients.
Increasing the Speed of Audit Completion
Depending on the type of data involved, the amount of data and the availability of that data, auditors can set deadlines for their projects weeks or months in advance. This is due to the same limitations listed above — auditors have limited capacity, and to complete an audit properly, they need time to sift through information and generate realistic analyses.
Speed is easily the biggest boon offered by artificial intelligence. In one trial of an accounting audit, human auditors required two weeks to complete a report that took AI software about 10 minutes. This provides audit services backed by AI a significant advantage, and over time, clients will become accustomed to lightning-fast results.
Increasing Standardization
In contrast, AI completes an audit the exact same way every single time. Though auditors can change an AI’s parameters or introduce it to new data to gain different results, the fact remains that AIs can offer a level of standardization that is utterly impossible for a human to achieve. Standardizing auditing processes to this degree can ensure that a client receives reliable and consistent reports, regardless of the quantity or quality of data provided.
Increasing the Quality of Audit Results
Humans make mistakes. Even the most experienced auditor working with the most basic set of data can miss an important detail that makes an entire audit report incorrect. Worse, mistakes don’t have to be catastrophic to have effects; even a small error in reporting could influence a client’s decision in the wrong direction.
It is incorrect to say that tools using artificial intelligence do not make mistakes. In truth, AI tech is relatively new, and many programs need to be calibrated and updated frequently to ensure high-quality functionality. Still, thanks to their standardization, the likelihood of an AI making a major mistake is low, and improved algorithms — like ones that help AI tools learn from past mistakes — will further reduce errors and improve the quality of completed reports.
Conclusion
The need for human auditors will not decrease. In fact, even AI tools need to be audited, to ensure they are functioning as expected. Yet, the efforts of human auditors can be greatly expanded through artificial intelligence. Every type of audit, from accounting to marketing to media and beyond, can benefit from AI software and services — so clients and auditing firms alike should look into the AI tools available to them today.
