PwC recently released their 2018 State of the Internal Audit Profession Study https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/risk-assurance/library/internal-audit-transformation-study.html . In their 21st annual study they turned the focus to the impact of technology on the audit profession and highlighted the following “essential eight” technologies:

Internet of Things
Augmenter Reality
Virtual Reality
Blockchain
Artificial Intelligence
3D Printing
Drones
Robotics
This list nicely mirrors the developing technologies your Technology Solutions and Practices Committee is tracking, investigating and explaining.

Of note in the study is the rapid expansion and adoption of these technologies, how such adoption impacts the risk profile of a company, and how internal audit and risk professionals must assist management to understand the risks exposures of leveraging these technologies. Only with a thorough understanding of the risks should management seek to exploit the advantages of technology.

The further focus of the report is the need for internal audit to engage with technology for their own needs, so they are also familiar with the tools to effectively audit the controls in the organization that use these technologies. The study points out that some audit department currently use bots to fully automate some audit testing by retrieving data from multiple sources, selecting samples and fully performing the audit test in an automated way with resulting completed audit workpapers. Follow the link to access the full study.