I recently released my new book, Trusted Advisors: The Human Edge in the World of AI, the third edition of a book I first published in 2017. As I began work on this edition, I confronted a basic question: had the world changed so much that the original Trusted Advisors model no longer applied? The environment in which you and I work today looks very little like the one we knew less than a decade ago, and I owed it to my readers to test whether the model still held.

Consider what we have faced since 2017. We endured a global pandemic, geopolitical instability intensified, and supply chains became sources of strategic risk. Economic volatility returned, cyber risks accelerated, and risk velocity increased. We entered what I have long called an era of “permacrisis,” in which disruptions overlap, interact and amplify one another. Then artificial intelligence arrived, and it raised questions about our profession that none of those earlier disruptions did.

AI Changed the Question

AI is transforming how organizations operate, make decisions and manage risk, and it is changing internal auditing as well. Organizations can now automate many of the activities that once made up a large share of internal audit’s value. AI can analyze enormous volumes of data, identify anomalies, summarize information, monitor transactions and generate insights faster than any human can.

That reality led me to the question at the center of the new edition: If machines can increasingly provide assurance, what distinguishes the human internal auditor? I never believed the Trusted Advisors model was obsolete, but I wanted to learn which attributes would grow in importance as AI grew more capable. What I found surprised me. The attributes that defined outstanding internal auditors when I first researched the model have held up well; what has changed is the competition those attributes now face.

The Original Model Came From Research

When I wrote the first edition, I did not want to publish a list of my own opinions about what makes an outstanding internal auditor. Working with colleagues at The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), I surveyed hundreds of chief audit executives around the world and asked them to identify and rank the attributes they considered most important to outstanding internal audit performance. Their responses shaped a model built around personal, relational and professional attributes.

Those attributes were ethical resilience, results focus, intellectual curiosity, open-mindedness, dynamic communication, insightful relationships, inspirational leadership, critical thinking and technical expertise. In 2017, they set outstanding internal auditors apart from their peers. In 2026, AI can perform, augment or potentially surpass humans in several areas we once considered hallmarks of professional excellence. That development raises the stakes for understanding the model, because you need to know which attributes AI can replicate and which ones it cannot.

Finding the Human Edge

As I revisited the model, I separated the attributes into two groups. The first group is what I call the human edge, which consists of five attributes where I believe humans still hold meaningful advantages over AI:

• Critical thinking
• Intellectual curiosity
• Dynamic communication
• Insightful relationships
• Inspirational leadership

These capabilities draw on judgment, empathy, skepticism, context and lived experience. They allow you to understand why something matters, recognize what may be missing, challenge assumptions, navigate relationships and influence others.

The second group comprises enabling attributes: ethical resilience, results focused, open-mindedness and technical expertise. I also added a new enabling attribute that could not have appeared in the original model, which I call AI acumen.

This distinction matters for your career. Internal auditors who try to beat AI at its own tasks will lose, and those who retreat into human skills and ignore technology will fall behind. The internal auditors who thrive will strengthen the capabilities where humans retain an advantage and use AI to augment their performance everywhere else.

Internal Audit Still Has Work to Do

I had a second reason for revisiting the model: internal audit has yet to earn the trusted advisor designation in many organizations. The IIA’s Vision 2035 research offers a sobering reminder. Among more than 6,000 internal auditors surveyed globally, more said stakeholders view them primarily as “the police” than as trusted advisors, and only 28% believed stakeholders saw them as valued. Even fewer believed stakeholders saw them as strategic, as curious learners, or as technology and data experts. Those findings should concern every one of us who cares about the future of this profession.

For years, I have argued that assurance is fundamental to internal audit, yet assurance alone does not define our potential value. Boards and executives need insight and foresight from us. They need professionals who can connect risks, interpret incomplete information, challenge assumptions and help them understand what may come next.

AI makes that shift more important. Technology can identify patterns, and human auditors must determine what those patterns mean. Technology can surface anomalies, and human auditors must judge their significance. AI can produce answers, and trusted advisors must help stakeholders decide which answers deserve their confidence.

The Model Endured. The Stakes Changed.

The most important conclusion I reached while writing this book is that the fundamentals of trust have changed far less than the world around them. You still must earn trust, and independence, objectivity, integrity, competence and courage still matter, as do relationships, communication and judgment. What has changed is the context in which you demonstrate those qualities.

The new Trusted Advisors model reflects that reality. Outstanding internal auditors will excel in the attributes where humans retain an edge, and they will cultivate the enabling attributes that allow them to use AI for greater insight and foresight.

I wrote Trusted Advisors: The Human Edge in the World of AI because I believe AI gives our profession an opportunity to redefine what makes us valuable. Your future depends on how well you use what AI can do while you strengthen the qualities that machines cannot replicate. That is the human edge, and I believe it will increasingly define what it means to be a trusted advisor.