Avalara’s 2025 CFO Pulse Survey reveals while most finance leaders are ready to transform, gaps in AI readiness, trust, and alignment threaten progress
Avalara, Inc., the agentic tax and compliance leader, today released its 2025 CFO Pulse Survey, revealing that U.S. and U.K. CFOs are navigating an era of unprecedented pressure driven by technological disruption, regulatory complexity and global economic volatility from conflicts, changing tariffs, and cost-of-living crises. The study, conducted among 500 CFOs, shows that finance leaders are at an inflection point, with many believing technology will strategically shift their role.
The key findings suggest there is a new blueprint for CFOs surveyed:
- Over two-thirds (68%1) say they’re moving beyond compliance to become enterprise growth leaders.
- The majority (76%1) believe evolving trade policies are accelerating their shift toward AI-enabled finance infrastructure.
- Despite bold ambitions, many CFOs struggle with governance, strategic alignment, and trust in deploying AI.
AI Is Reshaping Finance, But Alignment Remains Elusive
Avalara’s research highlights a widening gap between AI ambition and implementation. While 71%2 of CFOs express confidence in their teams’ ability to adopt AI, citing executive support, training, and pilot ROI, Avalara’s CFO Pulse Survey uncovers a disconnect between innovation and real-world priorities.
- Despite cross-border regulation keeping 40% of CFOs up at night, only 14% are investing in AI-powered cross-border compliance platforms.
- Just 26% say they are fully compliant with e-invoicing mandates, yet 37% view those mandates as a top operational strain.
- Less impactful AI investments, such as internal GPTs or predictive analytics, are being prioritized by CFOs over these mission-critical compliance areas.
Against this backdrop, CFOs are walking a tightrope between stability and transformation, as inflation, trade friction, and growing regulatory demands test resilience amid the tightening talent market. Sixty-eight percent1 believe with the right tools and expertise, they can lead full-scale transformation, not just manage compliance. Still, nearly a third (29%3) are uncertain that their organizations are AI-ready, due to a resistance to change, a lack of AI expertise, and weak leadership support.
“Finance leaders are evolving faster than ever, balancing disruption with opportunity,” said Ross Tennenbaum, President of Avalara. “AI lets CFOs move from managing compliance to driving growth, but the real advantage comes from alignment across compliance, insight, and strategy.”
Among those already leveraging AI, almost one-quarter (24%) have fully automated operations while over a third (34%) have automated select, high-impact areas. Most report returns in forecasting, supply chain oversight, cash-flow management, and risk mitigation, yet concerns about regulatory scrutiny, data integrity, and workforce readiness continue to hinder broader adoption.
To build trust and scale responsibly within finance teams, CFOs are prioritizing AI education (22%), integrated platforms (21%), automation expansion (20%), regulatory insight (19%), and greater executive influence (18%). Many are taking a gradual approach, deploying AI first in low-risk areas and building oversight frameworks to strengthen the business case for broader implementation.
Earlier this month, Avalara announced its extended AI leadership with Avi Everywhere, MCP Servers, and Global Compliance Innovations. The new AI innovations are designed to empower CFOs and their teams to execute with confidence on their strategic AI vision by creating greater accuracy and efficiency within tax and compliance.
Download the Avalara 2025 CFO Pulse Survey report to explore how AI-ready CFOs are redefining growth leadership, and where others are falling behind.
