7. What does DA mean for auditors of the future?
This article presented some ofthe challengesimpacting the widespread adoption of DA in auditing. Again,there issignificant promise forimproving audit quality through the use of DA, but significant hurdles will need to be overcome. Academic research can inform the myriad questions facing firms as they develop these approaches, but time is of the essence since the pressure to apply DA to auditing is growing. Companies are making investments in big data to improve their own decision making, and they expect auditors to be able to leverage big data to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of audits as well.