AI-Enabled Audit Talent Development under China’s New Quality Productive Forces: Mechanisms and Practice Pathways in Higher Education

Abstract

In China, efforts to develop new quality productive forces have placed higher and more complex demands on the competencies of audit professionals. Yet university-based audit talent development still tends to have a narrow disciplinary focus, limited training in data- and AI-related skills, and underdeveloped practice environments, making it difficult to effectively meet these emerging requirements. In this context, higher audit education needs to respond to the drive to develop new quality productive forces and to reshape existing audit talent development systems. This paper constructs a three-dimensional mechanism framework of intelligent empowerment, cognitive empowerment, and ecological empowerment, and uses it to clarify the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in reconstructing audit knowledge and skill structures, optimizing learning processes and assessment approaches, and reshaping collaborative education ecosystems. On this basis, it proposes practice pathways for AI-enabled audit talent development in six areas: digital and intelligent curriculum development, strengthened teacher support systems, personalized capability-enhancement schemes, multi-dimensional learning outcome evaluation systems, immersive practice environments, and improved government–industry–university–research collaboration mechanisms. The study aims to provide a reference for universities seeking to advance audit education reform and to develop high-quality audit professionals aligned with the requirements of new quality productive forces.