This is the greatest most informed article, assuming today is sometime in early 1993. Sadly terms like artificial intelligence and machine learning have become powerful buzzwords so they’re being used in situations where they are far from appropriate.
One particular flaw is where the author makes a point about difference in file formats, such as PDF docs vs text files. Extracting data from these kind of situations has long since been addressed by non-AI software such as ACL and IDEA. In fact many Audit functions have been preformed by software for years.
Another example, the author talks about how AI is better at aligning data, this is so vague, an Excel formula can easily show if a PO is related to an Invoice and again – software in particular Audit software has been doing this for a long time and never under the guise of ML or AI.
Where I do feel it has some value is that he recognizes that
Only human beings, such as the auditor, can tell the true story behind the data.
All in all, I think this is 20 years too late.
Source: Artificial intelligence comes to financial statement audits.