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Diving overview:
- Avalara research found that 92% of chief financial officers and finance leaders feel pressure to demonstrate that their investments in artificial intelligence will deliver a reasonable return, and only 7% say their organizations are focused on AI governance over speed of adoption.
- 44% of respondents are only moderately confident that they can explain the actions of an AI agent to auditors and regulators, and 76% say their organization can. Lack of specialized knowledge within the company Avalara, a provider of AI tax compliance software, said on Tuesday that it’s good enough to understand how AI works.
- “Nearly every leader surveyed feels personal pressure to prove that these investments are paying off,” Jamie Fishman, executive vice president at Avalara, said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the control, expertise and accountability that is supposed to be under it is still being built.”
Dive Insight:
Global spending on AI will skyrocket According to Gartner, it will increase 47% to $2.6 trillion this year from $1.76 trillion in 2025. exceed gross domestic product both Canada and Australia. By 2030, investments in AI are expected to increase by 120% to reach $5.62 trillion.
AI introduction rush Finance executives are faced with a dilemma. Finance leaders must serve as the main line of defense against wasteful spending while facing pressure from institutions, investors, and competition to fund AI projects that seemingly promise big returns.
“What struck me was the tension that leaders in the financial industry manage on a daily basis,” Avalara CEO Hugo Sarrazin said in a statement. “Enterprises are being challenged to move quickly, prove value, and modernize critical processes while protecting the management and governance on which their businesses depend.”
One sign that AI oversight is lagging in adoption is that 30% of survey respondents said their organization is lagging in AI adoption. Internal controls not updated An Avalara survey of 1,505 CFOs and senior finance executives found that within the last year:
According to Avalara, half of the survey respondents said their AI agents have delivered limited measurable ROI.
Responsibility for AI errors also varies, with 23% of respondents saying no one was responsible for the accident or it was unclear, Avalara said.
Avalara also found that 46% of those surveyed said their AI incident response plans were either untested or in development, and only 28% required documented audit logs showing how AI agents reached decisions.
Companies should build and operate AI agents using verified, domain-specific data to ensure transparency in decision-making, Sarrazin said.
Clear accountability and governance needs to be enforced before, rather than after, AI agents are launched, and companies implementing AI should choose partners with financial and compliance expertise, he said.
Avalara’s survey in June received responses from CFOs and other senior finance leaders at companies with annual revenue of $10 million or more in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and India. Respondents have deployed, piloted, or evaluated an AI agent within their organization for at least the past 12 months.
