As organizations struggle to develop and retain internal audit talent, the expectations for auditing functions are rapidly evolving.  

This is a good thing, actually! 😉

The Auditing profession has seen too little evolution in many areas, and is at risk of falling behind the curve when it comes to innovation and automation. This is directly leading to the profession becoming less attractive to current and future talent. Firms and corporations have a major opportunity to brand themselves differently, and lead some of the changes required to breathe new life into the profession. But, it’s proving to be very difficult to find the right ‘digital’ skills in the market, while retaining existing talent.

The new generation of auditors out there expect a workplace where manual tasks are minimized by default, through Intelligent Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI). This shift is not merely a preference but an industry imperative—organizations that fail to modernize their audit processes risk inefficiency, talent attrition, and decreased business value.  

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Put bluntly; it’s going to be incredibly difficult for organizations to remain dedicated to their ‘old’ way of working. That is, if they want to retain the Auditors they have, or have any chance at hiring new ones. Not to mention working with e.g. guest auditors, contractors or third party co-source.

Traditional, manual & labor intensive ways of auditing are giving way to data-driven, automated & AI-supported workflows, enabling auditors to focus on higher-value activities such as risk analysis, strategic advisory, and proactive business insights based on the automated processes they now just have to validate.

Lets be clear; we’re not telling you to ditch Excel. Not at all. However, there are many tool available to make your day-to-day work in Excel smarter, and quicker to validate.

Validation therefore is key in this transformation. Nobody became an auditor to just manually add data to Excel every day. That’s not leveraging the skillset you pride yourself on. It’s your professional insight and judgement that makes you a great auditor & professional, automation will help make that the core of your work.

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So, the role of internal auditors is quickly expanding beyond traditional assurance (compliance and risk assessment) into advisory functions. Increasingly, management expects auditors to offer consultative insights, leveraging real-time data and analytics to guide decision-making. This transformation requires a fundamental rethink of audit processes, toolsets, and skillsets. Audit Transformation (and Intelligent Automation) is at the heart of this evolution—an approach that blends automation with advanced analytics, AI-driven risk assessment, and continuous auditing techniques.  

Yes, Continuous Auditing. Remember that one? Well, it’s still here! The goal however is not just efficiency as it was mostly positioned but also deeper business integration, enhancing an auditors’ ability to provide strategic insights while mitigating risk in real time.

Driving business value, in real time!

Let’s explore some of the key drivers behind this shift, and how to deal with them:

1. Business Alignment – Embedding internal audit within the broader corporate strategy to ensure proactive risk management and value creation for the wider business. A more ‘advisory’ role, but focused on validating business processes & results.

2. Technology Integration & Intelligent Automation – Automating routine audit tasks with AI, robotic process automation (RPA), and machine learning, enabling auditors to shift focus from manual data collection to analytical validation.

3. Redefining the Auditor ‘role’ – Transitioning auditors from data processors to strategic advisors, equipping them with data visualization, predictive analytics, and cybersecurity expertise.

4. Cultural (Generational) & Skillset Evolution – Upskilling auditors in digital tooling, data science, and automation strategies, ensuring they can leverage new technologies effectively. Or, offering more automated & digital processes to newer generation auditors to lure them in.
   

It’s really not just about efficiency or business results. It’s about unlocking the full potential of (internal) audit teams— and elevating the function from a compliance necessity to a strategic business enabler.

So, how to go about Audit Transformation? How do you as a business take the steps required to drive this as a fast, structural change? We’ll explore the drivers behind this change, and some suggested steps to take to speed up the transformation.

Business Alignment

The goal of this driver is to embed internal audit within the overall Corporate Strategy to provide proactive business insights, risk validation, and value creation.

1. Align Audit team goals with corporate objectives: proactively show how audit can contribute to cost optimization, risk reduction, and strategic decision-making

2. Enhance and improve collaboration with leadership: ensure audit teams actively participate in business strategy discussions to provide early-stage risk insights. It’s also important to connect hungry, young talent to leadership to keep them motivated

3. Develop risk-based advisory frameworks: move from compliance-driven audits to business risk assessments that add real, clear business value

4. Create proactive Audit roadmaps: implement predictive risk management models to anticipate issues before they impact the business. Allow Audit teams to be a true part of the cadence of the business by dictating parts of its planning

5. Visibility: Establish and structurally communicate KPIs to the wider business that track how audit improves business efficiency, risk mitigation, and operational success

Technology Integration & Intelligent Automation

The goal for this driver is to automate routine tasks using AI, Intelligent Automation, machine learning or RPA. This allows you to shift the focus of an Auditor from manual, tedious work to high-value analysis and validation.

1. Assess Current Audit Processes: Identify processes that are high-volume, require a lot of manual intervention and above all are repetitive. These are tasks that will be prime candidates for automation

2. Select and deploy tooling for Intelligent Automation: Select and implement tooling for Document Validation, Workflow Automation, AI-driven assessment tooling, or e.g. Data & Analytics

3. Develop a Governance Model for AI & Automation: Establish clear strategic policies for AI-driven Auditing. You want to focus on what AI means to the company,  

accuracy, compliance and audit integrity. The goal here is to make sure that your auditors validate automated work at key milestones, and that you have security measures in place for each policy.

4. Training & practical learning: Provide hands-on training and learning experiences. Most of the benefits from Intelligent Automation only become clear once someone sees it happen, and sees how it will change their day to day. Training is also important to ensure Auditor’s adapt to a new way of working, and also learn to trust AI and automation

5. Monitor & Optimize: Rome wasn’t built in a day. You also won’t be able to extract the full value out of Technology and Intelligent Automation from day one. Continue to measure & optimize to ensure the best results in time

Now we know it isn’t always that easy when it comes to integrating technology. There are a lot of practical challenges when it comes to getting the budget required, red tape around solutions and specific technology (AI), clutter from the existing stack and way too many options to choose from. So in a follow-up to this article, we’ll deep dive how to select the right tech and find a path forward!

Redefining the Auditor ‘role’

The goal for this driver is to shift their focus from being a ‘data processor’ doing a ton of manual (low-value) work, to becoming a strategic advisor to the business. A strategic advisor focusing on predictive analytics, (cyber)security and mitigating risk.

1. Re-evaluate Job Roles and Responsibilities: define clear new expectations for (internal) auditors as risk consultants and business advisors. If possible, do this together with your current pool of auditors to gauge their enthusiasm about the new perspective

2. Continuous upskilling around technology: Focus training on HOW common practices like extracting and matching data are changing through the lens of RPA, AI, LLMs. It’s important to move to tool-based training, as most underlying auditing principles don’t change regardless of whether technology is used or not.

3. Learn to be predictive: Learn to use AI-driven predictive models to move beyond historical audits and be able to anticipate future risks and decisions

4. Visibility:  Involve Audit teams in strategic planning sessions to align their insights with business decisions
   

Cultural & skillset evolution

This driver is your future. Ensure that newer generation auditors are equipped with digital skills while leveraging automation to attract and retain top-tier talent.

1. Create digital L&D programs: Offer trainings in AI-driven auditing, automation tools, and data science

2. Modernize Audit Processes for Gen Z+ Talent: Reduce manual tasks, paper-based processes, and reliance on manual spreadsheets, providing a more intelligent feeling workspace

3. Be proactive about cross-talent training and collaboration: Pair senior auditors with tech-savvy juniors to exchange skills

4. Implement a flexible and digital-first work culture: Offer remote access to cloud-based or AI-driven audit tools and real-time collaboration platforms

Final thoughts:

An Auditor is as human as any other professional. They need a solid sense of influenceable direction and a sense of pride to be able to feel effective and successful.  

A solid example are Internal Audit teams within Airlines. They audit and ensure compliance of within many processes that are incredibly important to get right for the millions of passengers they transport every year. But, how often does one of those passengers actually realize that this sense of security and safety that they have is due to the hard work of one of the Auditors at the organization?  

With the above framework, you’ll be able to give them the visibility within the organization, and tools required to drive their own success in that organization. Doing so, will make sure you get to retain your current talent, but more importantly set yourself apart to attract future talent to the business.

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