Does the Artificial Intelligence Offensive Mean the Twilight of Forensic Auditing?

The answer to this question is simple. Of course. It's over. The end of forensic auditing understood as hundreds of hours spent reviewing invoices. A farewell to nights spent reviewing photographs, thousands of emails, and hundreds of images. A respite from browsing dozens of websites in multiple languages.

Does this mean the twilight of the experienced forensic auditor's profession? Not at all. We are returning in a new form, far more effective, achieving our goals faster. We still search for needles in haystacks, but now we more deftly remove cubic meters of dried grass. We formulate and verify investigative hypotheses more efficiently, leveraging the advances of digital forensics, and the time freed up in this way can be devoted, for example, to preparing for interviews and explanatory proceedings.

I realize that skeptics may accuse me of self-praise at this point. Let us try to focus on examples. A skillfully constructed prompt will facilitate finding most information about a company registered in Warsaw or Shymkent — you won't find more on your own trying to decipher Kazakh. At most, you will still need to check the Court Registers Portal yourself — for now, AI won't do that for you.

If you skillfully employ the technology, you will build a mechanism allowing you to verify the correctness of hundreds of receipts solely based on photographs. Being able to sharpen images, you will even make use of imperfect photographs. You will decipher production dates of devices without having to call manufacturers, and you will improve the audit program of a hospital in a small town.

A language model will not conduct an internal investigation in a company, but it will shorten its duration. The role of the experienced forensic auditor is now the validation of hypotheses, skillful conducting of explanatory interviews, and correcting errors that technology can, of course, make. If I can analyze a complex document for a law firm in one hour instead of three — why should I not take advantage of this opportunity?

Let us not fear technology. Let us wisely harness its potential, trust and verify, and the results of our work will certainly be more satisfying.