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Industry leaders and financial experts highlighted the necessity of integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into financial reporting and corporate auditing while maintaining rigorous human oversight to safeguard against rising fraud risks.
Speaking exclusively to ANI on the sidelines of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry's (FICCI) 2nd National Conference on Agile Governance: Navigating AI & Regulatory Landscape in Mumbai on Tuesday, Rajneesh Jain, Chair of the FICCI CFO Council & CFO for Reliance Jio Infocomm, and Abhishek Rara, Partner at Price Waterhouse LLP, shared how tech-driven agile governance is reshaping modern corporate ecosystems. Rajneesh Jain categorised AI as an invaluable asset for navigating the current data-heavy landscape, noting that the sheer volume of financial records makes manual oversight impossible. "AI is a reality because the enormity of data is so much that we cannot function without a tool... we have got AI as that particular tool, which can actually take care of your governance," Jain said. Detailing how AI elevates fraud detection from selective checking to universal analysis, Jain stated, "Earlier, the auditors were doing only sampling. Now you don't have to do sampling; you actually dip into the entire data... do an analytics, and through that, you are able to find out whether your data is speaking correctly or not". He strongly advocated for its full integration across Indian businesses, noting that when applied alongside ESG frameworks, it provides unparalleled assurance to management, regulatory bodies, and capital providers. Echoing these thoughts, Abhishek Rara focused on how technology elevates precision on the audit side, noting that analysing entire data sets allows corporate entities to identify hidden anomalies. Rara noted, "When you can look at the entire data set of a company, if you can compare it with their peers in a more meaningful way, it gives them a better ability to demonstrate or actually identify anomalies which may be fraud risks". However, Rara issued a strong caution against relying strictly on autonomous platforms, arguing that technology must serve strictly as an ally to human intelligence. "Just using AI is not going to work; you will always need to have human oversight. So, AI auditing or work is going to be human-led, AI-enabled... There must be a human who will own whatever that AI has produced," Rara asserted. He added that strong structural governance serves a critical strategic purpose, drawing an analogy that "we have to look at strong governance like a brake in the car. It's not there to slow you down, but it actually makes you drive faster and be comfortable to drive". Both experts conclusively agreed that AI is fundamentally a boon for financial accounting, provided it is deployed with structural responsibility, strict accountability, and deliberate human vigilance. (ANI)
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