The word audit originates from the word ‘audire/auditus’ in Latin, which means ‘hearing.’ Originally, the audit reports were presented orally and thus the name. However, audits have come a long way from being just a verification methodology a couple of years ago to now acting as a business enabler. Organizations are continually trying to improve their business processes by finding gaps w.r.t industry best practices and working towards them. Thus audit plays a vital role in uplifting the best practices of the organization.

The conventional IT audits had a standard questionnaire that had to be filled out to find out the gaps against the standard and pre-defined answers. The major drawback was that it was a static process and a reactive approach. The sampling technique used was merely random, and often this led to biases if not adequately sampled. The audit reports could also be tampered and skewed at the auditor’s will. All these drawbacks lead to the evolution of the next generations of auditing techniques.

The next-gen audit techniques involve the usage of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive computing (CC), analytics, and blockchain. These technologies have a promising future for ensuring data integrity and efficient auditing. The below representation shows how the new-gen technologies can help to achieve the best auditing practice in an organization.