The financial industry is investing in generative AI (genAI) solutions at a rapid pace—and these investments come with high expectations of short- and long-term ROI. According to McKinsey, the technology could add $200 billion or more in value annually to the banking sector alone.
But for auditors, it’s a different story. Despite their enthusiasm for the technology, studies show they lag significantly behind other financial sectors in AI adoption.
For example, a 2024 survey conducted by the Internal Audit Foundation found that auditors believe AI will transform workflows, supercharging efficiency and providing in-depth actionable insights.
In fact, an overwhelming majority say not using AI is a strategic risk, with 87% saying teams who don’t adopt it will face serious challenges—or even potential failure.
Nevertheless, only 18% said they were actually using the technology.
The problem is, firms lack the expertise to develop, launch, and scale advanced AI applications on their own. Managing these solutions—particularly genAI—entails risk. Poorly developed models can produce results that are wrong or biased. And auditors must ensure applications follow strict data security and compliance rules at all times.
Working with an experienced partner like Uturn Data Solutions, firms can develop solutions that meet their pressing needs—and get them up and running to add value within weeks. Uturn has helped companies launch genAI applications that analyze vast volumes of financial data at record speed, including reports stored in unstructured formats like PDFs. This analysis can predict outcomes, and models can summarize and explain their results.
GenAI’s Swiss-army-knife versatility allows auditors to classify documents and grasp their significance without spending hours poring through them. And it’s likely to catch on fast. A 2024 KPMG study found most companies expect to see external auditors using the technology within two years.
Audit Sight, a software platform provider that enables auditors to verify financial transactions, illustrates the relative ease of implementing genAI when firms have the right help. The company lacked advanced classification capability for customers’ financial data, and its user interface wasn’t intuitive, making it hard for clients to explore the data on their own. In addition, it needed to scale while keeping costs under control and client information segregated.
Audit Sight engaged Amazon Web Services (AWS) and data expert partner Uturn. To kickstart the process, Uturn conducted deep-dive discovery sessions with Audit Sight’s subject matter experts to fully understand their financial data and user experience needs.
The team then built a classification engine using AWS AI services to analyze and categorize data. By applying machine learning and natural language processing, Uturn helped identify patterns and group similar transactions for predictive insights. To support scalability and security, Uturn implemented multiclient data isolation and enterprise-grade security controls.
In just eight weeks, Uturn enabled the launch of an intuitive new customer interface using Amazon QuickSight Q to answer customers’ questions about financial data in plain English. The solution also creates charts, graphs, and summaries that help auditors interpret complex data, and contains tools they can use to annotate and share reports.
On AWS, Audit Sight can easily scale to accommodate the many new clients its interface is sure to attract, while maintaining robust data isolation and enterprise security and compliance controls.
GenAI unquestionably represents the future of auditing. Early adopters have the opportunity to gain a commanding lead, but those who fail to act may be putting their very livelihood at risk.
Ready to accelerate your genAI journey? Launch financial solutions quickly and set your company up for AI success with Uturn Data Solutions.