How AI Is Making CFOs Leaders in Strategy and Growth
CFOs are stepping beyond compliance and taking the wheel on enterprise growth. According to Avalara's 2025 CFO Pulse Survey of 500 finance leaders (UK and US, companies with 500+ employees, fielded Sept 9-18, 2025), 68% say their role is shifting into growth leadership, and 76% believe evolving trade policies are accelerating the move to an AI-enabled finance structure.
The message is clear: AI is no longer a side project. It's becoming the operating system for finance-if leaders can close the gap between ambition and execution.
What the data says
- 68% of CFOs say they're moving beyond compliance to lead growth.
- 76% say evolving trade policies are speeding the shift to AI-enabled finance.
- Cross-border regulation worries 40% of CFOs, yet only 14% are investing in AI-powered cross-border compliance platforms.
- 37% see e-invoicing mandates as a top operational strain, but only 26% are fully compliant.
- Lower-impact AI bets (like internal GPTs or generic predictive analytics) often outrank mission-critical compliance initiatives.
As Ross Tennenbaum, President of Avalara, puts it: "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."
The real friction: stability vs. transformation
Inflation, trade friction, and rising regulatory demands force CFOs to balance resilience with change. Most believe they can lead the full-scale shift (68%), yet nearly a third remain unsure about AI readiness due to resistance to change, limited expertise, and weak leadership backing.
Where AI is already in play, leaders report gains in forecasting, supply chain oversight, cash-flow management, and risk mitigation. About a quarter say operations are fully automated, and just over a third have automated select, high-impact areas. The blockers: regulatory scrutiny, data integrity, and workforce readiness.
From ambition to adoption
Confidence is high-nearly three-quarters of CFOs are confident their teams can adopt AI-with progress driven by executive sponsorship, training, and pilot-level ROI. Still, many teams prioritize "cool" experiments over the highest-value use cases. That trade-off slows impact.
What finance chiefs are prioritizing to build trust and scale responsibly:
- AI education (22%)
- Integrated platforms (21%)
- Automation expansion (20%)
- Regulatory insight (19%)
- Greater executive influence (18%)
Near-term actions for CFOs
- Refocus AI budgets on compliance first. Close the exposure on cross-border tax and e-invoicing mandates before scaling broader analytics.
- Run 90-day pilots tied to measurable outcomes: DSO reduction, audit-cycle time, error rates, and landed-cost accuracy.
- Stand up data governance early: system-of-record clarity, lineage, and controls for third-party models and vendor tools.
- Build an oversight framework: risk scoring, human-in-the-loop checkpoints, and audit-ready documentation.
- Consolidate into integrated platforms where possible; fragmentation kills speed, visibility, and compliance posture.
- Upskill finance. Make AI education a standing budget line, not a one-off workshop.
Where to deploy first (high ROI, low regret)
- Cross-border compliance: classification, landed cost, and tax determination with auditable trails.
- E-invoicing and e-reporting: end-to-end automation across mandates with continuous rules updates.
- Forecasting and cash: collections prioritization, anomaly detection, and cash positioning.
- Supply chain risk: early-warning signals on vendor risk, duty changes, and policy shifts.
Earlier this month, Avalara announced new AI capabilities-Avi Everywhere, MCP Servers, and Global Compliance Innovations-targeted at accuracy and efficiency in tax and compliance. These moves signal where the market is going: automate the regulatory core, then scale insights and strategy on top.
Context for execs
Trade and tax rules are moving fast. For example, e-invoicing mandates continue to expand in Europe; the European Commission maintains public guidance worth reviewing. See: European Commission: Electronic Invoicing. For broader policy shifts affecting tariffs and trade flows, the WTO's resources can help planning cycles: World Trade Organization.
Team enablement and tools
If your finance org is early in AI adoption, start with targeted learning and vetted tool stacks built for compliance. Curated options for finance leaders: AI tools for finance and a practical path to upskill teams with an AI automation certification.
Bottom line
AI will not replace the CFO. It will amplify the CFO who gets the order right: compliance, then insight, then strategy. Close the risk, bank the wins, and build from a stronger base. That's how finance leads growth, not just reports on it.
Survey notes: Avalara's 2025 CFO Pulse Survey includes 500 CFOs across the UK and US at companies with 500+ employees; fielded September 9-18, 2025.
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