Where Auditors Want Technology Most
A recent Thomson Reuters survey finds that auditors increasingly view technology as most valuable during the execution or fieldwork phase of an engagement. Fieldwork is where the largest share of audit effort is consumed — data collection, control testing, risk identification, and substantive procedures — making it the natural first target for technology investment.
The Specific Capabilities in Demand
Respondents flagged strong interest in three capability areas:
- Data analytics that can handle large data volumes efficiently
- Automation for repeatable tasks that consume senior auditor time
- Artificial intelligence for pattern detection and anomaly surfacing
Each addresses a different pain point: analytics for scale, automation for cost, and AI for judgment-support quality.
The Benefits Auditors Expect
Where these technologies are deployed effectively, practices report three consistent outcomes:
- Real-time insight replacing end-of-phase reconciliation work
- Task automation freeing senior auditors to concentrate on judgment-heavy analysis
- Quality improvement from reduced manual error and more consistent procedure execution
Implications
The direction of investment is clear; execution is where firms diverge. Firms building durable audit-tech capability are treating it as an engagement-design question rather than a tool-acquisition question, integrating analytics and automation into the workflow itself rather than bolting them on after the fact.