The Pentagon is turning to artificial intelligence and automation to help achieve a long-elusive goal: a clean department-wide financial audit by fiscal year 2028, according to Deputy CFO Tom Harker, DefenseScoop reported.
While speaking at the FedScoop-presented UiPath Fusion conference, Harker said the Department of Defense (DOD) faces mounting pressure after Congress mandated a clean audit opinion or risk significant funding cuts.
Harker said traditional audit methods such as substantive testing — a labor-intensive process involving large-scale data sampling — are too slow and inefficient to meet the department’s timeline. Instead, DOD plans to integrate AI and automation to improve access to financial data, streamline testing, and generate insights faster.
A key component of the strategy is expanding the Pentagon’s data platform, Advana, which aggregates financial, HR, and logistics information.
Harker said integrating enterprise-wide data into Advana will allow the department to use AI to analyze transactions, identify discrepancies, and produce audit-ready insights in days rather than months.
The Pentagon is also using robotics and AI to automate repetitive audit tasks, including gathering documents and extracting relevant financial details for auditors. However, Harker noted a major challenge remains: recruiting technical talent skilled in coding, Python, and data systems to support the effort.