Finance Leaders Race to Deploy AI Agents at the Expense of Governance

The report from Avalara, which surveyed 1,505 CFOs and senior finance leaders across the U.S., U.K., India, and Australia, highlights a widening gap between the rapid adoption of agentic AI and the implementation of necessary internal controls. While 71% of respondents face mandates to prioritize speed, 30% have failed to update their internal oversight mechanisms within the last year to account for AI-driven decision-making.

This lack of preparation creates substantial regulatory risk. Fewer than half of the surveyed leaders express confidence in their ability to explain an AI agent’s actions to an auditor. Compounding the issue is a deficit in specialized human expertise; 76% of organizations rely on external vendors or general IT staff rather than dedicated in-house specialists to oversee how their AI systems function.

Despite these risks, finance leaders are not looking to halt progress, but rather to scale responsibly. The research indicates a strong demand for "trust-by-design" features, such as audit trails that document every AI action and outputs grounded in verified financial data. As these agents gain deeper access to compliance and tax workflows, the consensus among experts is that the focus must shift from pure functional capability to the transparency and explainability required to withstand professional scrutiny.