AI is transforming how organizations operate, innovate, and solve complex challenges. Yet its greatest impact is often measured through the people who use it.
People Behind AI features conversations with BDO professionals exploring how AI is reshaping the way organizations work, make decisions, and create value.
In this conversation, Kirstie Tiernan sits down with Brendan Bixler, Managing Director in BDO's Forensics practice, to discuss how AI is changing forensic investigations, litigation support, and the analysis of complex data.
They explore how organizations can accelerate innovation through AI while maintaining the governance, oversight, and professional judgment needed to produce reliable and defensible outcomes.
[This transcript has been auto-generated.] AI is transforming business, but its greatest impact is on people. Welcome to People Behind AI, a series exploring how AI empowers people, solves real problems, and creates new possibilities in the way we work. In each episode, AI leaders share what they're seeing, what they're learning, and practical ways to put AI to work. So today, I have Brendan Bixler with me who is a managing director in our forensics practice. Welcome, Brendan. Thanks. Great to be here. Great to have you. So to start, just tell me a little bit about how you see AI empowering people around you. You know, Kirstie, one of my favorite things about AI is the ability to rapidly prototype. Right? Being able to get from the idea to a working concept, being able to then get feedback and rapidly iterate on it, I think it's so exciting that that timeline between idea to actually taking something to show a client or show something internally has really been shortened, and that's very exciting. It's just fun too, Brendan. I don't know about you, but it's hard for me not to wanna play in these tools on the weekend or at night, right, and try to build all the things that I've dreamt of being but not being a true programmer. It's hard hard to get those things to execute. Right? So that's that's been really exciting. I think we're seeing that with some of our clients too. I mean, AI and litigation, we're talking to a lot of law firms. It's generating a lot of buzz right now and for good reason. Right? I think when it comes to supporting your forensics clients specifically, how do how does BDO ensure that our use of AI really holds up under scrutiny? Yeah. It's a great question. Defensibility has always been paramount for forensics works. And so AI is just another tool, and it's an evolution of our industry and our practice. And so a lot of the the old techniques transfer over, for example, guardrails. So if I'm doing an analysis and we expect transactions to happen during working hours, we would identify and say, hey. Let us know if you see transactions that fall outside working hours. They may be legit, but that would also be unexpected. So putting some guardrails into our prompts or into our agents is very important. We also use LLMs as an evaluator, which is a cool technique. And so a lot of people use AI as a sparring partner, and we use it to challenge our arguments and say, what assumptions have we made? How can we approve this analysis? And so that has been very effective. And then certainly, there is the human component that does not go away. The machines are very good at getting data and organizing data, but there still is a premium value on being able to look and make that subjective evaluation, especially when something is not quite black and white. Yeah. I think we've seen a ton of or a ton of generative AI being used for things like summarization and and writing and such. I think one of the coolest things I've seen recently in the litigation area was the role playing for a a trial and really playing that whole thing out using AI as as a sparring partner, as you said. Right? And and being able to use that for training just seems like a really exciting way to to use AI. But let's let's zoom out a a little bit. How are you seeing it applied in forensic investigations? I remember back in the day, like, we were using things like Benford's Law and those kinds of things, which are maybe Yep. Kinda early stages. But building on that, what what are you seeing right now? You know, we are using AI across the entire life cycle. So as you noted, everything starts with data, data acquisition, making sure that we've got completeness, using APIs to help with validating data, running complex rule sets against that data. Increasingly, we're doing processing that would have been too expensive. So videos, audio files, being able to transcribe, translate different materials, has been very exciting. And then ultimately, and you can appreciate this because you've done this work as well, there's an element of storytelling. Right? So it's not just drafting our findings, but it's producing data visualizations. And if this gets used, our work product gets used in court, it's being able to help general people understand what's happened. How was a fraud perpetrated, or what were the findings? Right? And really, an explanatory standpoint, AI has been very helpful in that context. Yeah. It really gives you a different perspective unless you scenario model out different perspectives in the courtroom and so forth, which is really useful. Before we go, if you could leave the listeners with just one piece of advice for any organization that wants to do more with AI, what would it be? You know, there's a there's a lot of discussion right now online about cost, token maxing, and tokenomics. Right? And that's absolutely something for, clients to be concerned about. I think we live in a very interesting time where the models are rapidly, improving, costs are kind of going up and down across models, and then we've also got open source models which offer different trade offs, in consideration. So I would encourage clients to certainly explore the space. And if they need, bring in a trusted partner like BDO who can help advise them and guide them on their options. Yeah. It seems to really speak to those five steps that we have to deploying AI, which you're talking all about education. Educate yourself on what's going on now, what you need to be thinking about, because it will change. And it is hard to keep up, but that's what we we help our clients do. So well, Brennan, thank you for joining us, and thank you for joining us on our People in AI series, and we will see you next time.
People Behind AI: Practical Perspectives on AI Adoption Transcript
This transcript was generated using AI and reviewed by an editor.
People Behind AI Series Introduction
AI is transforming business, but its greatest impact is on people. Welcome to People Behind AI, a series exploring how AI empowers people, solves real problems, and creates new possibilities in the way we work. In each episode, AI leaders share what they're seeing, what they're learning, and practical ways to put AI to work.
So today, I have Brendan Bixler with me who is a managing director in our forensics practice. Welcome, Brendan.
Thanks. Great to be here.
Great to have you. So to start, just tell me a little bit about how you see AI empowering people around you.
Rapid Prototyping and Idea Iteration
You know, Kirstie, one of my favorite things about AI is the ability to rapidly prototype.
Right? Being able to get from the idea to a working concept, being able to then get feedback and rapidly iterate on it, I think it's so exciting that that timeline between idea to actually taking something to show a client or show something internally has really been shortened, and that's very exciting.
It's just fun too, Brendan. I don't know about you, but it's hard for me not to wanna play in these tools on the weekend or at night, right, and try to build all the things that I've dreamt of being but not being a true programmer. It's hard hard to get those things to execute. Right?
So that's that's been really exciting. I think we're seeing that with some of our clients too. I mean, AI and litigation, we're talking to a lot of law firms. It's generating a lot of buzz right now and for good reason.
Ensuring Defensibility in Forensics
Right? I think when it comes to supporting your forensics clients specifically, how do how does BDO ensure that our use of AI really holds up under scrutiny?
Yeah. It's a great question. Defensibility has always been paramount for forensics works. And so AI is just another tool, and it's an evolution of our industry and our practice.
Implementing Guardrails and LLM Evaluators
And so a lot of the the old techniques transfer over, for example, guardrails. So if I'm doing an analysis and we expect transactions to happen during working hours, we would identify and say, hey. Let us know if you see transactions that fall outside working hours. They may be legit, but that would also be unexpected.
So putting some guardrails into our prompts or into our agents is very important.
We also use LLMs as an evaluator, which is a cool technique. And so a lot of people use AI as a sparring partner, and we use it to challenge our arguments and say, what assumptions have we made? How can we approve this analysis? And so that has been very effective. And then certainly, there is the human component that does not go away. The machines are very good at getting data and organizing data, but there still is a premium value on being able to look and make that subjective evaluation, especially when something is not quite black and white.
AI Role Playing for Trial Training
Yeah. I think we've seen a ton of or a ton of generative AI being used for things like summarization and and writing and such. I think one of the coolest things I've seen recently in the litigation area was the role playing for a a trial and really playing that whole thing out using AI as as a sparring partner, as you said. Right?
And and being able to use that for training just seems like a really exciting way to to use AI. But let's let's zoom out a a little bit. How are you seeing it applied in forensic investigations? I remember back in the day, like, we were using things like Benford's Law and those kinds of things, which are maybe Yep.
Kinda early stages. But building on that, what what are you seeing right now?
AI in the Forensic Investigation Lifecycle
You know, we are using AI across the entire life cycle. So as you noted, everything starts with data, data acquisition, making sure that we've got completeness, using APIs to help with validating data, running complex rule sets against that data.
Increasingly, we're doing processing that would have been too expensive. So videos, audio files, being able to transcribe, translate different materials, has been very exciting.
Data Storytelling and Visualization
And then ultimately, and you can appreciate this because you've done this work as well, there's an element of storytelling. Right? So it's not just drafting our findings, but it's producing data visualizations. And if this gets used, our work product gets used in court, it's being able to help general people understand what's happened. How was a fraud perpetrated, or what were the findings? Right? And really, an explanatory standpoint, AI has been very helpful in that context.
Yeah. It really gives you a different perspective unless you scenario model out different perspectives in the courtroom and so forth, which is really useful. Before we go, if you could leave the listeners with just one piece of advice for any organization that wants to do more with AI, what would it be?
Navigating Model Costs and Open Source
You know, there's a there's a lot of discussion right now online about cost, token maxing, and tokenomics. Right? And that's absolutely something for, clients to be concerned about. I think we live in a very interesting time where the models are rapidly, improving, costs are kind of going up and down across models, and then we've also got open source models which offer different trade offs, in consideration. So I would encourage clients to certainly explore the space. And if they need, bring in a trusted partner like BDO who can help advise them and guide them on their options.
Continuous Education for AI Deployment
Yeah. It seems to really speak to those five steps that we have to deploying AI, which you're talking all about education. Educate yourself on what's going on now, what you need to be thinking about, because it will change. And it is hard to keep up, but that's what we we help our clients do. So well, Brennan, thank you for joining us, and thank you for joining us on our People in AI series, and we will see you next time.
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