Harnessing the power of AI to transform the detection of fraud and error

Setting the scene

PwC has made a significant investment in pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) for the audit. For the past 24 months, we have partnered with a leading Silicon Valley company – to build a revolutionary bot that uses AI and machine learning to ‘x-ray’ a business, analysing billions of data points in milliseconds, seeing what humans can’t, and applying judgement to detect anomalies in the general ledger. Called GL.ai, it is the first module of PwC’s Audit.ai.

GL.ai was named the 'Audit Innovation of the Year' by the International Accounting Bulletin in October 2017.

“The reason this is such a brilliant tool is its ability to look at different risks, in context, at the same time. For example, it would be uneconomical for an auditor to look at every single user’s pattern of activity to decide what’s unusual. With GL.ai, the algorithms do it for us.”

Laura Needhampartner, PwC UK

How it works

GL.ai harnesses PwC’s global knowledge and experience, embedding it in algorithms trained to replicate the thinking and decision-making of expert auditors. It examines every uploaded transaction, every user, every amount and every account to find unusual transactions (indicating potential error or fraud) in the general ledger, without bias or variability. And the more we use GL.ai, the smarter it gets.

GL.ai has been successfully trialled on 20 audits in 12 countries including Canada, Germany, Sweden and the UK.

Impact
 

Experience confirms that GL.ai speeds up the audit process, generates insights that boost efficiency, and provides comfort that attention is being focused on areas of true risk. These benefits are a direct result of GL.ai’s ability to analyse huge amounts of data, not limited by sampling.

The next Audit.ai modules are in development. They are set to revolutionise the audit, enhancing client service, quality and efficiency, and giving our people more time to do what machines can’t: thinking strategically and engaging, communicating and building the relationships needed to turn data insights into business action.    

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Contact us

Gary  Rapsey

Gary Rapsey

Global assurance Chief Innovation Officer, PwC United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7804 5516

Wes Bricker

Wes Bricker

Global Assurance Leader, PwC United States

Tel: +1 202 414 1000

Kirsten  Turner

Kirsten Turner

Partner, Assurance, PwC UK

Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7804 6968

Rhod Davies

Rhod Davies

Director, Global Assurance Innovation, PwC UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7804 1009

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