AI agents erase audit trail, Vast Space audit chief warns

The shift Robinson describes is not a new tooling problem so much as a record-keeping one. Financial and operational data still sits across NetSuite, human resources platforms and data lakes, but the reasoning that once surrounded that data — the handwritten notes, tick marks, email chains and Slack messages — is being produced, if at all, by software moving faster than any reviewer can follow. That is why the issue surfaced as a board-level question at Workiva Inc.'s Amplify conference rather than as a compliance checkbox.

Robinson's proposed remedy is deliberately old-fashioned. Internal audit has spent years pressing completeness and accuracy, and he argues those same tests can be applied step by step across a multistep agent workflow. The harder problem is accountability: at Vast Space LLC, which builds commercial space stations and carries astronaut safety risk alongside regulatory exposure, control gaps have consequences well beyond a restatement, and ownership stays with the person who signs the work.

Workiva's pitch fits that gap. Its specialized AI agents and Knowledge intelligence layer aim to provide one connective layer spanning NetSuite, HR systems, data lakes and whichever model a company has chosen — Robinson, a customer since 2017, describes asking a CFO to look at a single layer connecting those systems. Whether that resolves the unknown he worries about is likely to hinge on how completely those silos are actually connected, and on whether auditors can still demonstrate completeness and accuracy over work they did not watch being done.