Podcast 3 – The Future of Audits

When a major incident occurs, hindsight makes the warning signs seem obvious. Yet many of those signals existed long before the crisis. They were discussed, observed, and often dismissed as isolated events. Auditing cannot predict the future, but it can help organizations spot patterns others overlook. In an increasingly uncertain world, that capability may become one of the profession’s most valuable contributions.

Perhaps the most important capability we can teach future auditors is therefore neither prompting nor a particular AI application. It is augmented judgment: knowing how to combine the speed and analytical power of AI with the skepticism, experience and accountability of a human auditor.

Can audits truly reveal what matters if companies feel they must perform rather than speak openly? Inspired by a question we were asked during a recent interview, this article explores why psychological safety is essential to audit effectiveness, and how shifting from inspection to insight can help organizations surface risks earlier, strengthen trust, and turn audits into real opportunities for improvement.