Longtime collaboration between two leading Canadian companies signals significant advancement in future of audit by harnessing power of AI for enhanced risk-assessment and audit quality
TORONTO, April 24, 2023 /CNW/ - KPMG in Canada and MindBridge announced today a new strategic alliance bringing advanced responsible artificial intelligence (AI) into KPMG's global organization and digital audits around the world. Building on years of collaboration between the two Canadian-based organizations, KPMG's smart audit platform, KPMG Clara, will now use MindBridge's technology to harness the power of AI into audits, further enabling the identification of unexpected or high-risk transactions and providing enhanced audit quality and public trust.
"KPMG in Canada and MindBridge have been working carefully behind the scenes for many years to reimagine the audit experience," says Kristy Carscallen, Canadian Managing Partner for Audit and Assurance at KPMG in Canada. "Our goal is to deliver even higher audit quality, better insights into businesses and increase the auditor's ability to analyze risk. By responsibly harnessing the power of AI we're able to transform the audit to better serve and protect the growing needs of Canadian businesses, investors, and audit professionals, and we're excited to further advance these efforts on a global stage."
With growing interest and recent debate on the use of AI technologies, the two Canadian-based organizations believe their early and multi-year collaboration is an example of how to design, build and apply the powerful capability of AI in a safe and responsible manner. Both organizations came to the table with a shared goal of reimagining the audit experience and have leveraged AI to increase audit quality and transparency while carefully managing associated risks by putting necessary safeguards in place. The new global alliance will embed AI on all audits consistently across the KPMG global network.
"We are excited to announce our alliance with KPMG, one of the world's most respected and revered firms in any industry," says Leyton Perris, Chief Executive Officer and President of MindBridge. "Having our technology deployed via KPMG Clara to tens of thousands of audit clients is a monumental step forward in our mission to improve the reliability and trustworthiness of financial data. By joining forces with an organization that has the influence, scale, and expertise of KPMG we look forward to the opportunities that lie ahead, and to creating long-term value for all our stakeholders."
Bringing transformative innovation to market responsibly takes time to ensure it meets the highest standards of ethics, quality and security – especially in the space of audit and assurance, says Ms. Carscallen. "Our commitment to audit quality means that we aren't going to simply plug-in products off the shelf. We have worked in close and careful collaboration with MindBridge, investing the necessary time and resources to get it right – at every step of the way."
The transformative new alliance with KPMG's global organizations is an example of a Canadian-grown success story marked by early and lock-step collaboration between a large corporate leader and emerging tech company.
KPMG's smart audit platform, KPMG Clara, is a scalable, cloud-based platform, that delivers a risk-based and data-enabled digital audit that is globally consistent across KPMG firms. Embedding MindBridge's advanced statistical, machine learning, and rules-based analytics technology into KPMG Clara, gives KPMG's digital audits the ability to analyze transactions on a more granular level, helping to increase transparency, visibility and explainability. Rather than relying on a sample of data, transparent or "explainable" AI-based analysis will enable auditors to evaluate all of a clients' general and subledger data and identify higher-risk transactions for further analysis and challenge.
"Through the alliance, KPMG auditors will benefit from using MindBridge's AI-embedded audit intelligence tools, visualized analytics, and the in-depth resources needed for stronger analysis and assessment of risk," says Larry Bradley, Global Head of Audit at KPMG International. "That means our auditors are spending less time on routine data reviews and instead will increase focus on identified relevant riskier items. With this new lens, our auditors can see new insights into clients' business that drive better analysis, better conversations and better quality."
Moreover, employing AI capabilities puts the potential for continuous auditing within reach, which could completely revolutionize the audit by enabling auditors to analyze transactions in real-time and identify issues as soon as they occur, thereby reducing the risk of material misstatements.
With the implementation of MindBridge technology, KPMG is furthering its longstanding commitment to training and upskilling the next generation of auditors in innovation, data analytics and AI technology – a tradition it began in 2018 when it launched KPMG Digital Academy, an industry-first and only one of its kind program in Canada. The new alliance further demonstrates KPMG's commitment to investing in leading technology to transform the audit experience for both its clients and people.
"This global alliance marks an important step in the evolution of audit and assurance across the globe, completely transforming and paving the way for even higher levels of audit quality, greater insights into organizations, and new skills and career paths for accounting professionals," adds Ms. Carscallen. "I'm especially proud that that future of audit and assurance is made-in-Canada."
To learn more about KPMG Canada and MindBridge visit: Innovation in Audit - KPMG Canada and MindBridge.AI
KPMG LLP, a limited liability partnership, is a full-service Audit, Tax and Advisory firm owned and operated by Canadians. For over 150 years, our professionals have provided consulting, accounting, auditing, and tax services to Canadians, inspiring confidence, empowering change, and driving innovation. Guided by our core values of Integrity, Excellence, Courage, Together, For Better, KPMG employs more than 10,000 people in over 40 locations across Canada, serving private- and public-sector clients. KPMG is consistently ranked one of Canada's top employers and one of the best places to work in the country.
The firm is established under the laws of Ontario and is a member of KPMG's global organization of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International, a private English company limited by guarantee. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. For more information, see kpmg.com/ca
MindBridge is a global leader in financial risk discovery and anomaly detection that helps financial professionals access better ways of working by identifying, surfacing, and analyzing risk across broad financial datasets.
MindBridge is recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer, and by Forbes as a Top 50 AI Firm to Watch for its contribution to transforming accounting and financial professionals' ability to analyze data. MindBridge's technology has been accredited by Holistic AI, a world leading expert in best practices and standards for AI systems to ensure we perform in a safe, legal, and ethical manner.
Founded in 2015 in Ottawa, Canada, MindBridge is an ISO27001:2013, ISO27017:2015, and ISO27018:2019-certified secure platform, and has completed SOC 2® Type 2 and SOC 3® attestations. MindBridge serves audit and advisory firms, government and a wide variety of companies across multiple industries around the world, delivering innovations to enable strategic and secure digital transformation.
SOURCE KPMG LLP
For media inquiries: Jessica Botelho, KPMG in Canada, 416-777-8992, [email protected]; David Clement, MindBridge, 613-286-3586, [email protected]
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