AI agents: Transforming the tax experience

Summary:

• AI agents can provide value across the tax function, integrating easily into ERP systems, tax compliance tools and solutions.

• The technology goes well beyond traditional automation, can act proactively, even when faced with a new challenge.

• Tax executives can expect more from providers using AI agents, including more timely outputs, cost reductions and forward-looking insights. 

• AI agents increase the possibility of end-to-end innovation across the tax function.

PwC’s AI-agent-powered tax solutions are here, today: mature, powerful and trusted. Our hybrid AI-human tax teams, for example, will be able to produce K1s in a day, something that used to take nearly two weeks. In the coming months, we’ll be using AI agents to deliver such gains in every aspect of tax, from data processing to deals due diligence.  

Unlike earlier forms of automation, AI agents can do more than follow rules and checklists. They can understand and apply context, like tax laws and your company’s unique tax history. They can take proactive action, even when faced with a novel challenge. They can learn from their mistakes and build new solutions. Crucially for tax, they’re also easier to integrate into enterprise platforms.

Best of all, you don’t need to develop and deploy AI agents on your own. You can reap the benefits through your relationships with service providers—if you can navigate these new opportunities effectively. Here’s what we’ve seen through our experience.

It’s time to raise expectations

AI agents also bring time and cost savings, greater accuracy and more timely and detailed predictive analytics to enhance forecasting, risk assessment and scenario planning.

For transfer pricing, for example, AI agents can help automate your data collection and processing, reducing your costs and the burden on your team. Other AI agents can continuously scan and analyze global and local tax regulations, reducing the risks of noncompliance and helping you forecast changes and adjust your strategy. Still other agents can review documents to enhance their accuracy and compliance.  

AI agents can provide value across the board for tax, and increasingly you’ll engage with them directly. We’re integrating AI agents into our entire tax enterprise ecosystem for analytics and chatbots to answer compliance queries, generate reports, provide real-time visibility into tax positions, execute processes, accelerate delivery and help scale our services and solutions to meet your needs.   

The transformation of tax is a reality, right now 

AI agents for tax are designed to be integrated into enterprise platforms and specialized tax compliance tools and solutions. This mix of capability and ease-of-integration has enabled our tax professionals to begin to transform key business areas.   

• Asset and wealth management: We’re deploying AI agents for complex data extraction, classification, reconciliation and validation, enabling accurate, efficient tax processing. AI agents also perform intelligent tax form reviews, maintaining compliance and streamlining workflows.

• Transfer pricing documentation: We’ve developed AI agents to automate data collection, analysis and report preparation, improving the consistency and accuracy of reporting across jurisdictions while reducing costs and risks. 

• Mergers and acquisitions: Our AI agents are analyzing financial records, identifying risks and uncovering tax optimization opportunities. 

• State and local indirect tax: Our AI-agent driven compliance tools are navigating state and local tax regulations to increase efficiency, helping reduce errors in multijurisdictional filings and identify tax savings, working in the background to streamline end-to-end tax-impactful events within systems and processes.

Our continued transformation will center on using AI agents for innovation throughout our tax practice. 

As AI agents transform what tax can do, you don’t want to miss out. Here’s how to benefit from this revolution. 

1. Ask the right questions. Understand what’s available now and coming soon. Ask for concrete examples and demos of these AI-enabled solutions and understand how they will change how we interact with you and your teams. 
2. Demand new value. Some of the benefits you should expect from AI agents in tax include more timely, detailed and verifiable outputs; measures to help you reduce your function’s costs and free up more employees for high-value work; and forward-looking insights to shape strategy and help you better team with the business by enabling faster decision-making.
3. Insist on trust. Feel free to “kick the tires.” As we deploy more and more AI to help you achieve compliance and grow tax value, consider our Responsible AI framework with measures for data governance, AI governance, performance monitoring, cybersecurity and more.