ENG26VS04. Small Business Spotlight: Before You Buy, Before You Build: A Practice Leader’s Decision Framework for AI in Compliance

As AI adoption accelerates across audit, risk, and compliance, leaders face a more important question than whether AI can be used: where should it actually operate, and under what conditions should teams trust it?

This 25-minute session gives CPA firm leaders, attestation teams, risk advisory practices, CAEs, internal audit leaders, and compliance stakeholders a practical way to evaluate AI in control-based engagements. The focus is not generic AI productivity. It is how AI can support evidence-intensive work while preserving professional judgment, defensibility, and stakeholder trust.

Using familiar audit and compliance scenarios, the session explores where AI is most useful, where human review remains essential, and what leaders should know before buying, building, or extending AI-enabled workflows. Participants consider how AI can assist with evidence intake, control alignment, gap identification, follow-up, and reviewer-ready documentation without allowing the technology to replace accountability or professional skepticism.

A SOC 2 control example brings the framework to life, showing how AI can move from concept to practical support in evidence review while keeping final judgment with the engagement team.

Attendees leave with a five-question readiness checklist they can use in vendor evaluations, internal build discussions, risk advisory service design, or audit and compliance modernization conversations. No prior AI knowledge is required.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify high-leverage compliance engagement workflows where AI can reduce manual effort and rework.
• Recognize what “human in the loop” means operationally: reviewable, overridable, and documentable.
• Distinguish tools that organize engagement activity from tools that accelerate evidence-intensive work.