What is control assurance?
Control assurance is the work performed to understand whether controls are suitably designed, implemented and, where relevant, operating effectively enough to support a conclusion.
In external audit, the purpose is tied to the financial statement audit. The auditor identifies controls relevant to assessed risks, understands their design and implementation, and tests operating effectiveness where the audit plans to rely on them. In other assurance or internal-control work, the scope and criteria may be broader.
Control assurance is evidence work. A control description is not enough. The assessor needs to understand the objective, identify the evidence, evaluate exceptions and document why the evidence supports the conclusion.
AI is well suited to the legwork: reading multi-format evidence, finding relevant passages, mapping controls to risks, preparing assessments and drafting findings. The output should show the source and rationale so a reviewer can challenge it.
Platformed capability: Platformed reads multi-format evidence, maps controls to risks, prepares design, implementation and operating-effectiveness assessments, and drafts findings with the source and rationale visible. The reviewer controls the conclusion rather than accepting a black-box score.
References: Platformed control assurance · ISA 315 risk assessment resources