New Study Identifies the Top Internal Audit Priorities for 2026
The episode highlights Gartner's new survey of 119 chief audit executives (CAEs), revealing that building a culture of innovation and leveraging data analytics and generative AI are the top internal audit priorities for 2026. While 83% of audit functions are already piloting AI and 12% plan to adopt it soon, only 31% of CAEs feel highly confident they can create a tech‑savvy culture, citing data quality, skill gaps, and technology access as barriers. The discussion also stresses that broad "analytics everywhere" approaches are underperforming; instead, CAEs should concentrate resources on high‑value, targeted analytics use cases and improve thematic risk reporting to audit committees. Guest expert Margaret Moore Porter, chief of research at Gartner Risk & Audit Practice, underscores the need for bold leadership and strategic planning to turn these priorities into measurable outcomes.
How Overfamiliarity in Internal Audits Creates a Significant Risk to Quality
The episode examines how overfamiliarity—when the same internal audit team repeatedly audits the same operations—undermines audit quality by dulling critical thinking, limiting risk identification, and producing repetitive reports. Host Umer Iftikhar, an internal audit leader in Qatar, explains why rotation...
Failures Often Result From Weak Communication, Not Weak Processes
The episode explores how operational failures that appear to stem from flawed processes are often actually rooted in communication breakdowns. It explains that internal audits uniquely reveal these gaps by comparing documented procedures with real‑world practice, uncovering mismatched understandings, outdated...
UK Government Abandons Long-Planned Audit Reform Bill
The UK government has scrapped the Audit Reform and Corporate Governance Bill, ending a decade of debate sparked by corporate failures like Carillion and BHS. The proposed legislation would have replaced the Financial Reporting Council with a new statutory regulator...
Survey Finds Optimism on Growth in 2026 Despite Cyber and Tech Risks
A new Protiviti and NC State ERM survey of over 1,500 global executives reveals strong optimism about revenue growth through 2026, with nearly 70% seeing significant opportunities despite ongoing economic, geopolitical, and technological turbulence. Leaders are shifting from risk avoidance...