Resumen de Will the medium become the message? A framework for understanding the coming automation of the audit process.

Michael G. Alles, Glen L. Gray

• Frey and Osborne (2017), estimated that there is a 94 percent probability that automation will replace accountants and auditors. The leading accounting firms are concerned that a tech company like Google could enter and disrupt the auditing industry. In response, they are themselves investing in artificial intelligence and other technologies. Two key questions need to be answered when automating audits: What is the role played by technology, whether client or auditor owned, in the audit process? And how will the use of that technology impact trust in audited financial statements, recognizing that trust is the rationale for auditing in the first place? We develop a framework for the audit process as an affective work system that takes into account that technology is both a production input and an affective mechanism shaping the level of trust consumers of the audited financial statements have in the audit process that assured those statements.