How AI is Making CFOs Leaders in Strategy and Growth

Chief Finance Officers (CFOs) are navigating a volatile business environment, filled with pressures around global economic volatility due to changing tariffs and cost of living crisis, and regulatory and technological complexities.

Despite this, Avalara’s 2025 CFO Pulse Survey finds that most finance leaders are prepared for growth but gaps in AI readiness, trust and alignment threaten their progress.

The study was conducted on 500 CFOs from companies with 500 or more employees across the UK and US, by the agentic tax and compliance leader, between 9 September and 18 September 2025.

The results show that many finance leaders believe technology will strategically shift their role - 68% of respondents are leaning into this shift, saying they’re moving beyond compliance to become enterprise growth leaders.

Over three-quarters (76%) believe evolving trade policies are accelerating the shift towards an AI-enabled finance structure.

While this change is acknowledged, CFOs must find a way to limit the gap between AI ambition and implementation.

Ross Tennenbaum, President of Avalara, says: “Finance leaders are evolving faster than ever, balancing disruption with opportunity.

“AI lets CFOs move from managing compliance to driving growth, but the real advantage comes from alignment across compliance, insight and strategy.”

Turning AI from ambition to success

Avalara’s research shows that nearly three-quarters of CFOs express confidence in their team’s ability to adopt AI.

Respondents say their teams are achieving this through executive support, training and pilot ROI, however there is a widening gap between innovation and applying real-word priorities.

The survey finds:

• Cross border regulation keeps 40% of CFOs up at night but only 14% are investing in AI-powered cross-border compliance platforms
• 37% of respondents view e-invoicing mandates as a top operation strain, yet only 26% say they are fully compliant with those mandates
• Less impactful AI investments like internal GPTs or predictive analytics are taking priority over mission-critical compliance areas

Stability vs transformation

Amid inflation, trade friction and growing regulatory demands, CFOs are forced to try and balance strengthening resilience against the global environment and pursuing an AI transformation to aid the company’s strength.

It’s a full-circle decision that requires risk analysis and collaboration across teams to decide the best way for the company to approach the challenge.

With the right tools and expertise, 68% believe they can lead the full-scale transformation, not just manage the compliance.

However, still almost a third of CFOs are unsure whether their firms are ready for AI - due to reluctance to change, lack of AI expertise and weak support in leadership.

According to Avalara, organisations that are already leveraging AI see returns in forecasting, supply chain oversight, cash-flow management and risk mitigation.

Almost one-quarter of those using AI have fully automated operation and just over a third have automated select, high-impact areas - yet CFOs report regulatory scrutiny, data integrity and workforce readiness continue to hinder increased adoption

Implementing AI

The report shows that finance chiefs are aware of building trust and scale responsibly within their teams, prioritising:

• AI education (22%)
• Integrated platforms (21%)
• Automation expansion (20%)
• Regulatory insight (19%)
• Greater executive influence (18%)

Earlier in October, Avalara announced its AI innovations: Avi Everywhere, MCP Servers and Global Compliance Innovations.

These tools are designed to create greater accuracy and efficiency within tax and compliance - empowering CFOs to execute confidently on strategic AI visions.

Many CFOs are integrating AI gradually, deploying the technology in low-risk areas and building oversight frameworks - strengthening the business case for its use and broader implementation.

This allows CFOs to balance organisational stability against changing business environments alongside transformation progress.