KPMG Integrates AI Into Its Global Audit Platform

KPMG has added generative artificial intelligence into KPMG Clara, its global audit platform, which the Big Four firm said will provide a better audit experience for its auditors and clients.

“With seamless access to trusted generative AI capabilities within our audit workflow, our 9,000 auditors will be empowered to deliver quality audits,” Scott Flynn, KPMG U.S. vice chair of audit, said in a statement on July 29. “KPMG Clara with AI will not only free up resources to spend more time on the areas of highest risk but will directly help our teams exercise professional skepticism to protect the capital markets.”

KPMG Clara with AI is connected to the firm’s broader transformation efforts to enhance audit quality through its Trusted AI framework. According to KPMG, new generative AI capabilities will help teams:

Refine risk assessments: AI assistants can review documents to help engagement teams identify risk factors. For instance, within KPMG Clara, engagement teams can leverage AI to help review meeting minutes and flag possible accounting and fraud risks.
Develop substantive testing procedures: The AI assistant has direct access to the firm’s audit methodology, enabling auditors to design appropriate substantive testing procedures to respond to risks quicker.
Enhance audit documentation: By working with the AI assistant, team members can quickly summarize, question, and consider improvements to engagement-specific audit documentation within KPMG Clara.

“These AI capabilities enhance our overall transformation to deliver a better audit experience for our people and the companies we audit,” Flynn said. “Our AI capabilities will further strengthen our engagement teams to more effectively engage audit committees and management committees.”

Also on July 29, KPMG unveiled AI and generative AI capabilities that will be deployed in the workflow in the coming months. These include:

A growing prompt library that will, over time, include AI-powered agents to assist audit teams in driving audit quality;
Automated quality scoring to generate AI assessments and deliver feedback to audit teams on actions for quality improvement;
Use of AI and machine-learning to automate the review of financial statements, augmenting engagement teams’ assessment that all required disclosures have been made to the capital markets; and
Assurance capabilities integrated into the workflow for teams delivering assurance over disclosures, such as emissions disclosures.

“Our Trusted AI framework underpins everything we do with AI in the audit,” said Thomas Mackenzie, KPMG U.S. and global audit chief technology officer. “All of our auditors are trained on how to effectively use AI with a human-in-the-loop mindset to maintain quality, accuracy, and professional skepticism.”