Agentic AI in audit: Deloitte’s next-gen approach to audit technology

Talking points

• Agentic artificial intelligence (AI) uses autonomous AI agents, which can execute multistep audit processes with oversight.
• Empowering auditors with intelligent agents can create a powerful synergy between technology and human knowledge, experience, and judgment.
• Deloitte’s Omnia audit platform will include an expanding set of agentic AI capabilities, building on its suite of Generative AI (GenAI) tools to transform the audit process.

If you’ve been following advances in AI (and who hasn’t?), it’s time to get ready for the next big leap. Meet agentic AI, an advanced formof artificial intelligence that can make decisions and perform complex tasks.

Agentic AI represents a transformative opportunity for audit and assurance professionals by enhancing their capabilities. In this blog, we’ll explore this cutting-edge technology and how it may impact the audit process.

An evolutionary leap in audit technology

To appreciate this latest AI innovation, it’s helpful to review how it builds on previous AI advances. Earlier AI forms, such as machine learning and predictive analytics, have been transforming business operations. They automate routine tasks and deliver valuable insights, making processes more efficient. The arrival of GenAI accelerated this shift. GenAI empowered organizations not only to create content like text, images, and videos without the burden of machine learning, but also to generate ideas, perform natural language processing, and retrieve information from knowledge bases with remarkable speed and fluency.

Distinct Advantages of Agentic AI Over GenAI

Agentic AI marks a defining shift from GenAI. But what are those differences? It comes down to three key distinctions:

• Memory
• Tools
• Planning and reasoning

These advancements shift AI technology from solo large language models (LLMs) to a more complex agentic architecture. This can enable auditors to experience an interconnected web of autonomous agents that execute advanced audit tasks with their oversight.

How GenAI Set the Stage for Agentic AI

For audit and assurance professionals, GenAI allowed major efficiencies in documentation review, drafting audit communications, and research capabilities. However, audit teams have found that stand-alone GenAI models cannot execute audit workflows; they can lose context, produce inconsistent outputs, and require substantial human oversight.

Transforming Auditing: The Impact of Agentic AI 

Agentic AI enables audit transformation by enhancing workflow efficiency through advanced human-AI collaboration. Agentic AI empowers autonomous agents to support experienced auditors, allowing them to focus more on complex and judgment-oriented procedures.  While auditors focus on risk assessment, evaluation of internal controls, and other management activities, these AI agents can use advanced reasoning to connect across diverse systems and independently execute complex, multistep audit processes.

By augmenting professional auditor capabilities with intelligent agents that can perform complex tasks, agentic AI enables a more effective relationship between human auditors and audit technology—one that leverages auditors’ specialized knowledge, judgment, and professional skepticism. This approach creates a new paradigm where human intelligence and artificial intelligence combine to deliver greater value in the face of an increasingly complex business environment.

Integrating AI Agents into Omnia for Audit Enhancement

As the next step in Omnia’s evolution, Deloitte is integrating intelligent agent capabilities into the Omnia ecosystem. AI agents in Omnia act as digital specialists with defined roles, designed to perform specific tasks efficiently. They function as part of a unified system, automating data gathering and other complex tasks. Embedded agents within Omnia can automate tasks such as gathering and comparing data from diverse sources, managing complex project plans, and researching transaction fact patterns. Unlike conventional AI, which responds to requests based on fixed parameters, Omnia’s agentic AI operates in a much more agile and independent manner, offering:

• Autonomy to execute complex workflows with less supervision.
• Full human-in-the-loop to monitor and adapt when encountering errors or suboptimal results.
• Context awareness to maintain memory across interactions and documents.

As with all of Omnia’s AI capabilities, these agentic AI tools are developed in alignment with Deloitte’s Trustworthy AI™ framework, which embeds transparency and compliance throughout the AI life cycle.

What role can Deloitte play?

Over the past decade, Omnia has evolved, expanded its AI capabilities, and enhanced our auditors’ ability to meet fast-moving client challenges. To learn more, read our latest Omnia press release, visit our webpage, or contact your Deloitte representative. As always, feel free to reach out to me directly with any questions.

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