The march of the robots

Abstract

hen one of the authors of this article began his professional journey in 1968, personal computers were nowhere in sight, a 10-key adding machine was the standard, and accountants literally hand-posted transactions to accounting journals. When someone told you to copy something, it meant writing it out longhand or using a typewriter. Analyzing government financial information was perilous at best, given the inability to readily correlate data and with limited assurance about its reliability and completeness. Audits seemingly took forever and were 100 percent labor intensive. We’ve come so far; but where will the future take us? Today, we’re on the brink of another quantum leap in our profession that will revolutionize the art of the possible. This article will focus on the movement to intelligent automation, or the “March of Robots,” and the impact it will have on transforming all facets of financial and program management and auditing. We’ll demystify intelligent automation, discuss its importance and benefits, examine the intelligent automation spectrum, highlight its impact on auditing and provide perspectives on the way ahead.1