First Edition · Free

The Audit Leader's Guide to AI for SOX Testing

A short, opinionated field guide for Internal Audit leaders on making AI agents work inside a SOX program.

Agents

Audit Trail

ROI

90-Day Pilot

Build · Buy · Configure

Evidence

External Audit

8 chapters · ~90 minutes · PDF + print. Vendor-neutral.

What's in the book?

Get a clear overview of AI Agents. Understand where they are useful, how to apply them, and the limitations.

1. The Manual Machine

  • The Director's Chair

  • The Numbers

  • The Budget Squeeze

  • The Team Tax

  • This Is Accelerating

2. Why SOX Automation Failed


  • Why SOX Evidence Is Uniquely Hard

  • What RPA Got Right, and Where It Broke

  • Prompts

  • Why Prompt Libraries Stall

  • Key Takeaways

3. What AI Agents Actually Are


  • The Comparison: Prompts vs. Agents

  • So What Is an Agent?

  • What Changed in 2025

  • Why a Bigger Prompt Is Not the Answer

  • The Six Components of an Agent

  • Key Takeaways

4. Where AI Agents for SOX Testing Work Now


  • Evidence Intake and Pre-Testing Validation

  • C&A Testing

  • Transactional Controls and Population-Level Testing

  • Complex Spreadsheets

  • Screenshot- and Log-Heavy ITGC

  • UAR and Access Provisioning

  • Where to Be Careful

  • Use Cases Map

  • Key Takeaways

5. The Audit Trail That Makes It Defensible


  • Why Prompts Are Not Workpapers

  • The Five Layers of a Defensible AI Agents Audit Trail

  • Walkthrough: The Five Layers in Action

  • Why AI Agents for SOX Can Enhance Manual Testing

  • External Audit Readiness

  • The Regulatory Guidance

  • Key Takeaways

6. Build, Buy, or Configure


  • The Three Paths

  • Path 1: Configure

  • Path 2: Build

  • Path 3: Buy

  • How to Evaluate

  • Beyond the Pilot

  • Common Mistakes

  • Key Takeaways

7. The Internal Case


  • The Foundation

  • Establishing the Baseline

  • The ROI Calculation

  • The 90-Day Pilot

  • Pick the Right Pilot

  • The Pilot Scorecard

  • The CFO Memo

  • Key Takeaways

8. The Next 18 Months


  • More Autonomous Audits

  • Evidence Collection Will Change First

  • From Periodic Testing to Broader Monitoring

  • Auditing Agents vs. Auditing Humans

  • From Discrete Cycles to Continuous Loops

  • The Enterprise Trust Layer

  • What Stays Stubbornly Manual

  • What Changes for the Team

  • Key Takeaways

Written by Alexey Zanin

Alexey is the founder of Bead AI. Before Bead, he was a compliance lead at Meta, working across all three lines of defense: first-line control design, second-line program management, and third-line testing support.

He started Bead AI after seeing the amount of manual work required for each testing cycle, and deciding that kind of work should not exist by 2026.