Post by Mohamed Slama, CISSP, CISA

Somewhere over the Atlantic ✈️ - On the flight from Miami back to Paris, i was reflecting on three inspiring days at the PIAF 2026 in Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA. One thing became very clear during the forum: Internal Audit is entering a new era. Across presentations, and many conversations with peers, a few themes kept emerging. AI is redefining assurance. From AI observability controls to governance over increasingly autonomous systems, organizations now face a new challenge: ensuring transparency, accountability, and trust in AI-driven environments. Cybersecurity and operational resilience are converging. In a world shaped by geopolitical tensions and growing digital dependencies, cyber risk is no longer just a security topic — it is becoming a core business resilience issue. The profile of the auditor is evolving. As audit functions integrate data, analytics, automation, and AI, the future auditor will combine risk expertise, technological fluency, and analytical thinking. One of the highlights was the breakout session with digital and technology audit peers, where we had great discussions around data foundations and AI, cyber oversight, and talent. Toward the end of the forum, we also had the pleasure of presenting our “Intelligent Audit Transformation – Leveraging Agentic AI and Advanced Analytics” together with my colleague Zuzana Gigoi (Olejarova), FCCA, CFE, CIA . The interest and conversations that followed were extremely rewarding and reinforced how relevant these topics are and how well positioned we are as we continue driving the transformation of Sanofi Internal Audit. We ended the presentation with a short but powerful moment: a video message from our CAE, Youssou Gueye — recorded as if it were the year 2030 — sharing his perspective on what the future of Sanofi Internal Audit could look like. Events like PIAF remind us that the future of Internal Audit will not only be shaped by new technologies, but by how we collectively rethink the role of assurance in an increasingly intelligent and autonomous world. Looking forward to continuing the conversation. #InternalAudit #AI #AgenticAI #Cybersecurity #AdvancedAnalytics #AuditInnovation #Pharma #PIAF