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"Focus on the Future 2026: New risks for internal audit in a hypervolatile decade"

The internal audit profession faces a new era of hypervolatility -- risks are interconnected, and AI is transforming everything. AuditBoard’s annual Focus on the future survey uncovers the critical challenges facing audit leaders, from the AI readiness gap to ongoing resource issues. Authored by Richard Chambers, this essential report provides four key strategic recommendations and defines the “superhuman” skills your team needs to thrive as trusted advisors in the year ahead.

AuditBoard’s Focus on the Future series has chronicled the evolution of internal audit through some of the most turbulent years in recent memory.

Now, in 2026, the story continues in an environment of what practitioners aptly describe as hypervolatility. Disruptions are not only constant; they are accelerating, interdependent, and self-reinforcing. They present both risks and opportunities for a profession at a crossroads.

According to the annual Focus on the future survey[1] (n = 213 internal audit leaders), the profession faces three simultaneously converging pressures:

1. Tight resources: Budgets and staffing remain largely flat while new risks emerge and expectations rise.
2. AI transformation: Only 39% of internal audit leaders say AI will significantly transform the profession within five years, and fewer than 30% feel confident auditing AI-related risks today.
3. Role redefinition: A majority (54%) aspire to be recognized as trusted advisors, but most still feel confined by a compliance-driven identity.

It is the convergence of these three pressures that is creating unprecedented risk and uncertainty for the profession. Internal audit’s future depends on how it reconciles these tensions. Thriving amid hypervolatility will require internal auditors to harness AI as a capacity multiplier, while doubling down on human judgment, courage, and communication — the “superhuman” skills that no algorithm can replace.

Download your copy of Focus on the future 2026: New risks for internal audit in a hypervolatile decade to explore the results in more detail and get Richard Chambers’ four strategic imperatives for internal audit teams in the year ahead.

 

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