We conducted pilot projects in several areas of our firm to test the impact that intelligent automation could have on our business. In the audit area, cognitive technologies may enhance audit quality by generating richer, more detailed audit evidence for evaluation and provide opportunities to gain additional insights regarding clients’ processes, internal controls and financial reporting. What’s more, supervised cognitive systems can learn from each encounter with new information enabling continuous refinement of the system’s knowledge and analytical capabilities.

Another pilot project was conceived to build our capabilities supporting strategic account management. With information gathered from a variety of available sources, intelligent automation is helping our partners and professionals be better students of our clients and of our own firm; and, may help us engage clients better based on the multi-dimensional insights extracted.

Cognitive automation was also a perfect fit for a pilot project in our tax area. To enhance service delivery, we created a platform that had the capability to address different types of analysis, rather than only one-off solutions. Throughout the analysis process, we are building an always-learning, cumulative repository of tax knowledge. 

As part of the projects, we developed a relationship with IBM Watson for cognitive technology platform support. We also created a Cognitive Automation Lab staffed with specialists in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive technology, computational linguistics, and natural language processing. And we created a strong project-management office to engage groups from risk management, IT, HR, and other function

The power and potential of intelligent automation creates new ways of thinking about work at the intersection of cloud, data, cognitive, and other automation technologies. In our pilot projects, designed to test the impact of intelligent automation on our firm, the effort yielded significant improvements, as well as advanced insights. 

Based on project results, we see that intelligent automation can give our professionals and clients more time to focus on activities that create value. Intelligent automation can take massive amounts of structured and unstructured data from many sources and allows for business challenges to be solved. This tool provides greater insights and frees up resources to focus on more impactful activities.

We can actually teach the tool to draw conclusions and come to confidence-based outcomes. Plus, it also learns from feedback provided by humans, continually improving its abilities. It’s only the beginning of how we can use these technologies to strengthen KPMG’s own transformation and help clients develop transformational business strategies that align with their needs.