New features include AI-powered voice-to-text, flowcharting, contract analyzer, gap analysis capability and more
In just six months, KPMG auditors have held more than half a million conversations with KPMG Audit Chat using 1.3M unique prompts
Mobile app to be deployed to all professionals
New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - May 20, 2024) - Today, KPMG LLP, the U.S. audit, tax and advisory firm, announced upgrades to KPMG Audit Chat, a proprietary generative AI tool built on Azure OpenAI service, and to KPMG Clara, our global smart audit platform. These upgrades coincide with the deployment of Copilot for Microsoft 365 to all KPMG partners and professionals and advancements in our Audit AI technologies that support our firm-wide transformation initiative, KPMG aIQ, that aims to embed GenAI into everything we do.
"Generative AI is revolutionizing our ability to uncover audit insights, while creating a better experience for our people, audit committees and management teams,” said Scott Flynn, KPMG U.S. Vice Chair – Audit. “By converting voice to text, transforming text to images and seamlessly integrating desktop and mobile platforms, our people will be using GenAI more often and throughout the audit to better understand the unique risks facing the companies we audit."
Launched in October 2023, KPMG partners and professionals have engaged in more than 600,000 Audit Chat conversations to more effectively search databases, extract and summarize data from contracts, analyze documents and aid with research on complex accounting and auditing topics.
Highlights of the many upgrades announced today include:
AI-powered voice-to-text to enable Audit professionals to record and analyze discussions with management to understand a firm’s processes, risks and more;
A new flowcharting capability to automatically create process maps from a recorded walkthrough meeting or transcript;
An enhanced gap analysis capability for team members to more effectively review their audit documentation compared to the auditing standards and KPMG methodology;
A new Contract Document Analyzer to help teams extract, identify and summarize relevant contract terms for analysis and in year-over-year comparisons; and
- Peer Benchmarking to help teams assess financial statement disclosures against peer company disclosure requirements.
All these capabilities will also be embedded in a mobile application available to all KPMG Audit partners and professionals. Consistent with KPMG aIQ’s human-centric approach, each of these uses integrates professional judgment and alignment to professional standards to enable accuracy and the highest quality outcomes.
“We continue to transform our audit globally to be AI-powered and people-driven, building on our existing AI transaction scoring capability,” said Thomas Mackenzie, KPMG U.S. and Global Audit Chief Technology Officer. “While we’ve moved quickly to test, pilot and deploy AI in our audits, where we are today is just the tip of the iceberg. As our technology teams and auditors gain more experience with generative AI, we expect to accelerate innovation across our audits.”
This launch is the next significant milestone in our journey to integrate AI into KPMG Clara, our global smart audit platform, and enhance our AI-led audit and assurance capabilities. Recent milestones include:
In 2021, KPMG announced it was bringing more than 1,000 Technology Assurance professionals into Audit as part of its multi-year transformation that highlights technology as the future of Audit. Today, those professionals are ensuring we stay ahead of IT attestation trends as businesses increasingly digitize their systems. This is especially critical as businesses embrace AI as a business enabler. Objective external assessors can become consistent collaborators with businesses and support long-term risk management and help business leaders navigate the challenges associated with AI implementation, deployment and operation.
In 2023, KPMG penned a global audit alliance with MindBridge, embedding its AI and machine learning capabilities into KPMG Clara in the form of Transaction Scoring. Within KPMG Clara, we use Transaction Scoring to perform analysis over 100% of transactional populations, delivering audit evidence and identifying outliers over both general ledger and subledger populations. Today, 200+ teams are using this capability ahead of full deployment across all U.S. audits.
In 2023, KPMG also announced a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar investment in Microsoft’s AI and cloud services. Through this expanded alliance relationship, KPMG firms will infuse data analytics underpinned by Microsoft Fabric and generative AI through the Azure OpenAI Service and Azure Cognitive Services into the audit process. By infusing AI through KPMG Clara, KPMG’s 85,000 global Audit professionals will be empowered to focus more closely on higher-risk areas of the audit, sector-specific risks and challenges – to the benefit of both stakeholders and capital markets.
In January 2024, KPMG joined the Responsible AI Institute to further our efforts to embed trust into everything we do with AI and accelerate responsible deployment of this critical technology.
In April 2024, in addition to upgrading Audit Chat, the Audit practice, along with the entire firm, began receiving access to Microsoft Copilot. Engagement teams are already deploying Copilot, along with Audit Chat, to transform the walkthrough experience by streamlining the development of formalized business process narratives and creating flowcharts for completed and prepared business processes.
"AI and generative AI technologies are not only shaping the audit but transforming the landscape of financial reporting, creating both opportunities and challenges for business leaders,” added Flynn. “It’s critical we leverage AI to enhance audit quality, but also understand how businesses are embedding AI into their reporting processes to protect the capital markets.”
According to a recent KPMG survey, 83% of financial reporting leaders said that it was important for auditors to utilize AI in performing their analyses, compared to 61% in 2023. In an ongoing effort to stay at the forefront of technological advancements, KPMG has armed its Audit professionals with information and resources to address risks that arise when entities incorporate the use of AI in financial reporting processes and internal control over financial reporting.
Beyond helping businesses to better navigate the challenges associated with AI implementation, objective external assessors can also help businesses drive trust in the capital markets. KPMG is actively deploying an assessment approach that considers governance structures, processes, systems and controls, tailored to meet stakeholders' needs and balance their risk appetite. According to our survey, a third of financial reporting leaders expect their external auditor to provide third-party attestation over the use of AI technology.
To learn more about KPMG and our Trusted AI capabilities, visit www.kpmg.com or kpmg.com/trusted-ai
About KPMG LLP
KPMG LLP is the U.S. firm of the KPMG global organization of independent professional services firms providing audit, tax and advisory services. The KPMG global organization operates in 143 countries and territories and has more than 273,000 people working in member firms around the world. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. KPMG International Limited is a private English company limited by guarantee. KPMG International Limited and its related entities do not provide services to clients.
KPMG is widely recognized for being a great place to work and build a career. Our people share a sense of purpose in the work we do, and a strong commitment to community service, inclusion and diversity and eradicating childhood illiteracy. Learn more at www.kpmg.com/us.
Hannah Gould
Sr. Associate, Corporate Communications
Tel: +1-212-954-1512
Anoova Guthikonda
Associate, Corporate Communications
Tel: +1-202-533-3633
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