The PCAOB should not be “a black box,” chair says

PCAOB chair Jim Logothetis has been on the job since February 10—in finance parlance, more than a quarter. At the Institute of Management Accountants’ 2026 Accounting and Finance Conference in Tampa, Florida, earlier this month, he shared what he’s learned and his priorities for the board going forward. 

Reputational concerns. Logothetis raised concerns about the visibility and reputation of the PCAOB. During his first months on the job, he “was also surprised in a negative way, you might say, at the credibility of the organization,” he said, noting that that board has become too political. “Unfortunately, from what I can tell,” he said, “the organization, just like many regulators, has been politicized.” The PCAOB, he argued, needs to be apolitical and retain its focus on professional skepticism and what’s best for investors.

Logothetis also said that “many people around the country, from politicians on down to preparers, don't really know enough or much about the PCAOB.” The organization “should not be kind of a black box,” he said. To address this issue, he plans to increase stakeholder engagement with the board, noting that it recently solicited public comments on its strategic plan for the first time in its 24-year history.

“We received 80, I would say, significant comment letters, and I have them all off my desk, and it was eye-opening,” he said, adding that he and his staff plan to, with the help of AI, summarize the comments and map them to a first draft of the strategic plan.

“We have to report to the SEC quarterly anyway,” Logothetis said. “So we’re going to report to everyone, from employees to all the stakeholders, what our strategic initiatives are, and how we’re progressing against them.”

Auditing demands people. Logothetis also described being “surprised” by the “lack of investment in technology” at the PCAOB, The board’s technology “hasn’t evolved the way it should be, consistent with the people and the organizations that we regulate, so in order for us to be effective as we inspect and regulate public accounting, we need to make sure we're at least in step with them,” he said.

Though it will be crucial for the PCAOB to keep up with AI, Logothetis said, he also stressed the importance of human judgement in auditing. “We need to make sure that we don’t lose track of focus on the people,” he said. “To be able to deal with transactions and all that is important, but professional skepticism and professional judgment will always be critical in everything that you do and everything that we do at the PCAOB.” He described auditing as “part science and part art.” The “science part of it,” he said, may become automated, “but the art is always going to come down to people.”

The profession’s ability to attract new entrants concerned Logothetis. “A critical element for the accounting profession is attracting, retaining, and training the best and brightest,” he said. “Without the best and brightest, the AI by itself is not going to be sufficient.”