A transformed approach to audit

Sebastian Stoeckle, Global Head of Audit Innovation at KPMG, caught up with Emma Carroll, Head of Content at Source, on the latest episode of our The Future of the Firm podcast.   Sebastian and Emma shared their insights on the following matters and more:    Audit today is as important as it’s always been, with its core mission still centred around generating trust in business entities. But the environment in which audit operates is transforming as a result of geopolitical, regulatory, and technological change.   There has been a shift in clients’ attitudes to audit. Historically, they have seen it as burden, but now they understand that it can provide valuable insights for organisations.  Clients now expect more than just an analysis of transactions—they want insights, such as how to evolve their compliance systems and how they stack up against the rest of the marketplace.  The ability to apply a digital audit is limited by the client’s own digital maturity. If organisations themselves have invested in standardising and centralising systems, this increases the capacity for audit innovation.   Neural networks and basic machine learning have been being used in audit for some time, but auditors are increasingly seeing the value of large language models. There’s also huge potential in agentic AI and research reasoning models.   The future of audit is not about replacing humans, but creating a powerful combination of human expertise and machine capabilities.  If you enjoyed this conversation, don’t miss our sister podcast, Business Leader’s Voice. In a recent episode, we talked to Matthew Wilson, Chief Legal Office at Fremantle, about creating business resilience.