Tax & Accounting3월 02, 2026

The connected audit: A strategic framework for agentic workflows

By: Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting

Audit firms are entering a pivotal new era where agentic AI acts as a coordinated network of intelligent, specialized agents working alongside auditors. This emerging model, known as the agentic audit, promises a future where data moves seamlessly, risks surface earlier, administrative tasks shrink, and human judgment becomes even more central.

Expert‑in‑the‑loop control keeps judgment at the center

As firms explore AI‑enabled workflows, the most common question surfaces immediately: Who stays in control? Agentic audits are assistive, not autonomous

Approval gates, exception logs, and evidence links ensure that every agentic step is transparent, traceable, and explicitly reviewed by a human auditor. These design principles maintain compliance with standards and safeguard auditor judgment even as AI takes on more of the manual work.

Key takeaway: Agentic audits elevate efficiency while strengthening, not weakening, the control auditors have over the engagement.

Read more: How agent-assisted steps stay under auditor control 

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The backbone of agentic audit workflows is integration

Agentic audits depend on one principle above all:  connected systems. When trial balance data, analytics outputs, workpapers, request lists, and supporting documents live in silos, auditors spend valuable time reconciling versions, searching shared drives, and manually stitching the audit together. 

APIs are the foundation that enables data to move in real time across the audit ecosystem. These connections pave the way for agentic coordination such as triggering reconciliations or analytics when new data appears, or updating dashboards and exception logs automatically.

Key takeaway: Integration isn’t just an IT upgrade—it’s the infrastructure required for reliable, scalable intelligence across the audit lifecycle.

Read more: Connecting the audit: How integration enables agentic audit operations

Use case: Transforming PBC requests and workpaper prep

Few stages of the audit are as universally time‑consuming as PBC intake. Inconsistent naming conventions, version confusion, manual classification, and repeated review cycles all contribute to rework and delayed progress. Document analysis agents have the potential to dramatically streamline this phase.

By auto‑categorizing files, extracting key values, and surfacing potential issues (like missing pages or mismatched totals) at the moment of upload, not during late‑stage review, firms can reclaim significant time and reduce frustration for both staff and clients.

Key takeaway: Document analysis is one of the most mature, near‑term agentic capabilities, and a natural starting point for firms modernizing their workflows.

Read more: Document analysis: A quick win in audit automation

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Use case: Agentic risk assessment and planning

Modern risk assessment requires deeper analytics, earlier insight, and more structured narratives than ever before. Embedded analytics give firms full‑population visibility from journal entries to subledgers so anomalies can be identified before planning is even complete. These analytics form the data backbone for future agentic agents that may draft risk narratives, propose procedures, and link evidence, all under auditor review.

Key takeaway: Embedded analytics improve audit quality today and lay the groundwork for tomorrow’s agentic risk identification.

Read more: The evolving role of agentic risk assessment in audit planning

The path to the agentic audit

Today’s audit environment is already benefiting from emerging capabilities such as embedded analytics and API‑driven integration, which reduce manual effort and create a more connected engagement experience. As these foundations mature, they pave the way for tomorrow’s transformation, where multi‑agent coordination, automated narrative drafting, proactive alerts and anomaly detection, and self‑organizing workpapers and dashboards will work together to create a more intelligent, anticipatory, and streamlined audit workflow.

The agentic audit amplifies auditor expertise and frees them to focus on the highest‑value work. Firms that begin strengthening integration, adopting intelligent tools, and embedding analytics today will be best positioned to take advantage of these advances as they mature.

Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting

Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting is a leading provider of software solutions and expertise that helps tax, accounting and audit professionals research and navigate complex regulations, comply with legislation, manage their businesses and advise clients with speed and accuracy.

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