Avalara AI Governance Survey

Avalara, Inc. released a research report titled 'Agents of Change: How the Race to Deploy AI Agents is Outrunning Financial Governance,' based on a survey of over 1,500 CFOs and senior finance leaders across the U.S., U.K., India, and Australia. The survey found that 92% of respondents feel career pressure to demonstrate ROI from AI agent investments, while only 7% say their organization prioritizes governance over deployment speed. Key findings include that 76% lack in-house expertise to understand AI agents, and 23% say accountability for significant AI agent errors would be unclear. The report highlights a tension between speed of AI adoption and the need for governance, accountability, and internal controls, particularly in tax and compliance. Avalara CEO Hugo Sarrazin emphasized that speed without accountability creates risk. The survey was conducted by Censuswide.