Business auditing is undergoing a major transformation. While financial accuracy and regulatory compliance remain front and center, auditors are increasingly taking advantage of artificial intelligence to shift their focus from being primarily compliance checkers to delivering strategic value.

Snowflake Inc., a cloud-based data platform provider, finds itself at the center of this shift. The company focuses on developing a framework of foundational controls to deliver compliance with regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Now they’re using advanced analytics to dig deeper into specific use cases and regulation requirements, according to Amrita Kapoor (pictured), head of internal audit at Snowflake.

Snowflake’s Amrita Kapoor talks with theCUBE about the evolving business auditing landscape.

“We’ve been onboarding a lot of systems and controls onto this framework. That has really helped us to move away from being a traditional compliance shop to being more of a trusted advisor and assurance partner for our stakeholders,” Kapoor said. “I see us continuing to be a trusted partner for our stakeholders, leveraging AI [and] data to see how we could continue to help Snowflake to stay ahead of the risks in a very fast-paced tech environment — and hopefully also be a thought leader.”

Kapoor spoke with theCUBE’s Rob Strechay and Rebecca Knight at Audit & Beyond, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how Snowflake is adapting to the changing world of auditing and the impact of AI on SOX compliance. (* Disclosure below)

Toward a comprehensive data strategy for business auditing

While AI is a major catalyst behind the revolution in business auditing, assembling a data strategy — and overcoming silos — is fundamental. The collaboration with AuditBoard demonstrates how Snowflake sees this comprehensive focus in terms of data, Kapoor explained.

“Snowflake is the data power that enables scale and speed and AuditBoard happens to be that overall workflow and governance layer that then takes this data and turns it into actionable risk insights,” she said. “You can connect to Snowflake, you can configure queries and trigger alerts for exceptions monitoring — all within the control pane view in AuditBoard.”

While Snowflake continues to broaden its analytics and AI footprint, the true scale comes from rethinking the audit operating model itself, according to Kapoor. Instead of adding headcount, her team is prioritizing automated, data-driven controls and AI-assisted workflows to boost coverage and efficiency across SOX and operational audits.

“We obviously cannot keep pace with this growth by simply adding headcount,” Kapoor said. “We have to look for more automated and data-driven techniques to drive efficiencies in our world.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Audit & Beyond event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Audit & Beyond event. Neither AuditBoard, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE