The Problem: Six Weeks of Manual Evidence Work
SOC 2 Type II audits cost $80k–$300k per cycle, and a disproportionate share of that cost and calendar drag comes not from the audit itself but from evidence collection. Engineers get pulled off roadmap to export CloudTrail logs. Control owners struggle to locate prior-period artifacts. The CISO spends hours reviewing raw exports for gaps before anything can be packaged for submission. When evidence collection runs six weeks, it crowds out everything else — and late or incomplete submissions create findings that extend timelines further.
How an AI Agent Approaches It
The agent starts by mining prior auditor RFIs and your existing Vanta control mappings to understand what evidence each control requires and where it lives. From there it connects directly to AWS Config, GitHub, and Okta to pull artifacts automatically — access logs, configuration snapshots, change records — on the schedule the auditor expects. It drafts control narratives for each domain and surfaces exceptions and gaps in a review queue rather than buried in raw exports. The CISO approves or adjusts before anything goes to the auditor. Evidence collection time typically drops from six weeks to around eight days.
The Business Case
This is primarily a risk and cost story. A failed or extended SOC 2 audit blocks enterprise deals — many buyers won't sign until the report is in hand. Compressing the audit cycle means your sales team can surface the Type II report earlier in procurement conversations, removing a common enterprise stall point. On efficiency, the agent typically reduces evidence-collection effort by 70–88%, which translates directly to fewer engineering hours diverted and lower outside counsel and auditor overage fees. The agent is typically live and producing results within about six weeks of engagement.
Will the agent handle exceptions and control failures, or does it only collect passing evidence?
It handles both. When the agent encounters a gap — a missing artifact, a policy that hasn't been attested, or a configuration drift — it queues that exception for the CISO's review rather than silently skipping it. The goal is to surface the full picture before the auditor does.
How does this interact with an existing Vanta or Drata setup?
The agent uses your existing Vanta control mappings as its operating schema — it doesn't replace the platform, it extends what the platform can do automatically. Evidence that Vanta flags as requiring manual collection is exactly the kind of work the agent takes on.
What's required from my team to get this running?
Read-only API access to AWS Config, GitHub, and Okta, plus access to prior auditor RFI documents. The agent mines those to build its evidence-collection playbook. Most of the setup work is on our side during the first two weeks.