Avalara Survey: Finance Leaders are Racing to Deploy AI Agents Before Governance is Ready

Nine in 10 finance leaders say they are under pressure to prove AI ROI, while only 7% say their organizations prioritize governance over deployment speed

DURHAM, N.C., July 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Avalara, Inc., the agentic AI leader in global tax and compliance, today released new research revealing that while finance teams feel pressure to  deploy AI agents as quickly as possible, governance, accountability, and internal controls are struggling to keep pace. 

The report, "Agents of Change: How the Race to Deploy AI Agents is Outrunning Financial Governance," surveyed more than 1,500 CFOs and senior finance leaders across the U.S., U.K., India, and Australia who have deployed, piloted, or actively evaluated AI agents in financial processes during the past year.

Key findings
Pressure to show value is mounting.

• 92%¹ of respondents feel moderate or significant career pressure to demonstrate that AI agent investments are delivering ROI, with half calling that pressure significant.
• Half say their AI agent initiatives have delivered only limited measurable ROI to date.
• 71%² say the pressure to deploy agents is focused primarily on deployment speed.

Governance is falling behind the agentic AI rush.

• Only 7%³ say their organization prioritizes governance over speed.
• 30%⁴ have not updated internal controls within the last year to reflect AI agents taking or recommending actions.
• 44% are only somewhat confident they could explain an AI agent's actions to an auditor or regulator.

The findings reveal a finance function caught between executive pressure to accelerate AI agent adoption and the operational reality that those AI agents need to be managed with care, particularly in tax and compliance, where decisions must withstand regulatory scrutiny.

"Finance leaders are right to move quickly to capitalize on agentic AI opportunities, but speed without accountability creates new forms of risk, and speed without rethinking workflows limits ROI," said Hugo Sarrazin, Chief Executive Officer at Avalara. "The organizations that realize the greatest value from AI won't simply deploy more agents. They'll leverage agents with trusted data, governed workflows, and clear controls that enable automation with confidence."

Pinpointing Accountability

The research highlights questions about who is responsible for significant AI agent errors. For example, nearly one in four (23%⁵) say accountability for a significant AI agent error would be unclear or sit with no one, while 16% believe the executive who approved the AI investment would ultimately be held personally accountable. 

One of the challenges is a lack of available knowledge: 76%⁶ lack dedicated in-house expertise to understand how their AI agents work, relying on IT or vendors.

"Finance leaders are being asked to move quickly with AI, but governing agents requires a new combination of domain, AI, IT, and data governance expertise," said Frank Cirone, VP Commercial Strategy at Snowflake, a cloud data platform company. "As AI agents gain access to financial and compliance workflows, organizations need to know what those agents can see, what they can do, and when human approval is required. That kind of control has to be built into the architecture, not added after the fact." 

Finance Leaders Prioritize Trust Alongside Speed

The survey makes clear that finance leaders aren't looking to slow AI adoption. They're looking to scale it responsibly. When asked what would most increase their confidence in expanding AI agents, respondents consistently prioritized capabilities that reinforce trust and accountability:

• AI agents operating within existing systems of record (27%)
• Outputs grounded in verified tax, compliance, and financial data (25%)
• Validation against known compliance requirements (25%)
• Vendor commitments around accuracy and accountability (24%)
• Audit trails documenting every AI action (23%)

The capabilities respondents identified as most valuable were "audit-ready documentation for every AI-driven action" and "monitoring regulatory changes and applying updates in real time", each selected by 30% of respondents.

"AI agents are now moving into business processes that require trust, transparency, and governance by design," said Jim Lundy, Founder, CEO, and Lead Analyst at Aragon Research. "As enterprises scale agentic AI, the question becomes less about whether the technology can act and more about whether organizations can understand, control, and explain those actions. In finance, where workflows are auditable and outcomes carry real business consequences, governance and explainability will become essential requirements for adoption."

The full report, Agents of Change: How the Race to Deploy AI Agents is Outrunning Financial Governance, is available at: newsroom.avalara.com/image/Agents_of_Change.pdf.

Methodology:

The research was conducted by Censuswide, among a sample of 1,505 CFO or Senior Finance leaders (aged 30+) in companies with a revenue of $10 million+ across the U.K., U.S., Australia, and India (505, 500, 250, and 250 respondents respectively). Respondents must have deployed, piloted, or actively evaluated AI agents in their organization in the last 12 months and work in the following industries: Financial Services and Insurance / Healthcare /Manufacturing & Distribution / Professional Services (i.e., accounting firms legal, consulting) / Retail & E-commerce / Tech and SaaS. The data was collected between June 15, 2026 - June 22, 2026. Censuswide is a member of the Market Research Society (MRS) and the British Polling Council (BPC), and a signatory of the Global Data Quality Pledge. Censuswide adheres to the MRS Code of Conduct and ESOMAR principles.

About Avalara

Avalara is the agentic AI platform for global tax and compliance. For more than two decades, Avalara has built one of the most expansive libraries of tax content and integrations in the industry, processing more than 54 billion transactions annually and supporting millions of businesses worldwide. The company's purpose-built AI agents automate end-to-end compliance with greater precision, from tax calculations and return filings to exemption certificate management and beyond. For more information, visit Avalara.com.

1. Combining answers "significant pressure" (50%) and "moderate pressure" (42%) 
2. Combining answers "entirely on speed" (29%) and "mostly on speed" (41%) 
3. Combining answers "mostly on governance" (6%) and "entirely on governance" (1%)
4. Combining answers "Within the last 13 – 23 months" (17%), "within the last two years" (9%), "Over two years ago" (2%) and "We are currently in the process of updating it" (2%)
5. Combining answers "Accountability would be unclear" (17%) and "No one individual or team" (6%) 
6. Combining answers "this is something we are actively trying to hire or develop for" (20%), "we rely on our IT or technology team for this" (20%), "we rely on the vendor who built or provides the agent" (20%) and "we have no one currently responsible for this" (16%)