Talent strategies will define internal audit’s future in the age of AI

Internal audit is undergoing a transformation driven by AI, declining resources, evolving stakeholder expectations, and a volatile risk landscape in which risk expands exponentially. As I have written about frequently in the past year, these forces are fundamentally reshaping the work we do, and internal auditors have no choice but to evolve. Are you preparing your team to excel in our transformed profession?

Yesterday’s skills won’t ensure tomorrow’s success. Tomorrow’s internal auditors must strengthen their uniquely human superpowers while developing skills in AI, analytics, and IT audit. Talent strategies must identify how teams will acquire, develop, and retain these skills.

Most internal audit teams are still evolving their talent strategies to have the vision, flexibility, foresight, and organizational alignment necessary to navigate the AI era. Can we evolve fast enough to remain indispensable in the age of AI? I assure you we can, but forward-looking talent management strategies are essential. To anchor our thinking, we can articulate a vision of how specific AI capabilities will evolve our work and role, how we’ll maintain the “human edge,” and how talent strategies can respond.

Productivity and assurance enablement

What happens when AI assumes or expedites much of the work that has been internal audit’s historical bread-and-butter?

Indeed, agentic AI tools and agents will automate the heavy lifting of controls testing, evidence generation, and other repetitive tasks across planning, fieldwork, reporting, issue remediation, and beyond. AI is already helping organizations scale testing, increase its velocity, and reduce the administrative workload (e.g., Optro’s Midship-powered autonomous testing can automate up to 87% of SOX program management). What’s more, AI will automate sampling, evidence collection, document annotation, narrative/flowchart creation, and workpaper generation. AI-enabled risk sensing will help capture and interpret risk signals in real time, making continuous control monitoring and risk assessment a reality.

The human edge: Strategic focus and advisory bandwidth

While AI can provide answers to questions, humans decide which questions matter. AI-enabled productivity increases will free up time, broadening our bandwidth to focus on more strategic work. We’ll bring our intellectual curiosity to the table to expand coverage, identify and pursue issues and opportunities outside the audit program, and deliver strategic analysis and foresight, becoming the trusted advisors we have long aspired to be.

AI-driven insights and reporting

Internal auditors cannot match AI’s speed and capacity. AI tools will detect patterns and anomalies across millions of transactions, rank risks based on statistical deviation, and more. AI agents are already capable of ingesting and interpreting unstructured data like human auditors would. AI-driven insights will help identify emerging risks and risk exposures, control weaknesses, and process improvement opportunities more quickly than traditional methods.

The human edge: Critical thinking and dynamic communication

AI finds and surfaces information based on its training. Only humans can evaluate what it really means and communicate the nuances.

We bring the critical thinking lens, ethical judgment, empathy, and real-world experience needed to interpret AI’s outputs in context and communicate their meaning to stakeholders. We can recognize manipulation that may appear normal in the data, understand management’s intent and other key context, challenge AI’s rationalizations, consider alternatives, and distill it all into communications with the right tone, context, and level of urgency.

Connected risk enablement

Every internal auditor appreciates help in improving cross-functional collaboration and communication. AI is no threat here, but rather a potential purveyor of powerful capabilities for integrating and analyzing data across teams, creating a common language, and enabling a more holistic view of risks, controls, and dependencies. AI agents will help orchestrate assurance, enabling more coordinated, collaborative, prioritized risk management.

The human edge: Insightful relationships and inspirational leadership

AI cannot, however, “read” humans, build relationships, or establish genuine trust. Indeed, AI’s probabilistic models and people-pleasing tendencies are counterproductive to trust.

We bring the integrity, objectivity, judgment, ownership, and empathy needed to build and sustain trusted stakeholder relationships and layer in an understanding of human emotion, motivation, and organizational culture. So while AI provides an integrated system of action to support a more unified risk agenda, internal auditors provide the relationships, motivation, and commitment required to drive urgency and achieve results.

AI-driven risks

AI’s value is inextricably intertwined with the manifold risks it introduces related to data privacy, security, bias, regulatory compliance, model reliability, transparency, and accountability, all of which can significantly impact organizational decision-making and stakeholder trust.

The human edge: Objectivity and risk/controls expertise

AI can’t audit itself. Human internal auditors will always be needed to provide assurance over AI. We will play a critical role in providing independent assurance and advisory services over our organizations' AI use and governance. We are uniquely qualified to do this work given our independence, objective perspective, and risk, controls, process, and change management expertise.

How to respond: Talent management strategies for the AI age

What does this mean for the future of internal audit talent management? Teams will become more multidisciplinary, skilled in analytics, AI, cybersecurity, and behavior risk analysis. We will expand from assurers to advisors, and from value protectors to value creators. Accordingly, CAEs should:

• Embed talent risk into audit planning. Talent is now a strategic risk directly impacting internal audit’s effectiveness. Annually assess and report on talent risk to the audit committee.
• Redefine internal audit’s narrative. Communicate an expanded vision of internal audit’s value proposition. Help your team see — and position itself — as strategic, trusted, foresight-driven advisors rather than backward-looking “compliance police.”
• Reallocate time to invest in AI upskilling. Provide leadership, structure (e.g., AI use policy, focused sessions, prompt library, metrics, pilot projects), and support (e.g., time/permission/incentivization to experiment, targeted training) to upskill practitioners in using AI and auditing AI activities.
• Develop existing talent with precision. Prioritize continuous education on AI, cybersecurity, and other emerging risks. Be intentional about developing and incentivizing the human superpowers (e.g., intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, communication, ethical resilience) that will ensure internal audit’s continued relevance and value. Consider structured rotation programs that help practitioners build cross-functional business acumen and relationships.
• Evolve recruiting. Focus on “hybrid” talent who combine the human edge with relevant technical expertise (e.g., AI, data science, technology, behavioral risk analysis, traditional internal audit). Broaden your pipeline through targeted outreach to universities, professional associations, and nontraditional talent pools.
• Retain talent with intent. Redesign career paths so that high-performing staff see a clear trajectory. Instill a sense of purpose. Monitor engagement on an ongoing basis.
• Avoid co-sourcing as a long-term solution. Co-sourcing external specialists with relevant expertise can be a short-term bridge, but talent strategies must work toward building the required skills in-house.

Future vision: Symbiosis between AI and human superpowers

In Optro’s 2026 Focus on the Future survey, 28% of internal audit leaders said that the profession risks becoming irrelevant to business strategy if it fails to adapt. We must adapt.

What must not change are the human superpowers that give us our edge. When I published Trusted Advisors in 2017, I identified nine key attributes of outstanding internal auditors: critical thinkers, technical expertise, dynamic communicators, insightful relationships, inspirational leaders, ethical resilience, results-focused, intellectually curious, and open-mindedness. From today’s vantage point, I’m increasingly confident that these attributes will remain constant amid the profession’s transformation. These are the very capabilities internal auditors bring to complement, elevate, and harness AI’s power.

CAEs should embrace these characteristics within themselves to develop and drive bold, forward-looking talent strategies that invest in the human edge. By conscientiously combining our human strengths with the power of AI, internal auditors will remain integral to organizational success.

About the authors

Richard Chambers, CIA, CRMA, CFE, CGAP, is the CEO of Richard F. Chambers & Associates, a global advisory firm for internal audit professionals, and also serves as Senior Advisor, Risk and Audit at Optro. Previously, he served for over a decade as the president and CEO of The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA). Connect with Richard on LinkedIn.