Finance and Accounting Outsourcing (FAO) State of the Market 2025: from Automation to Autonomy – The Rise of Agentic AI in FAO

The Finance and Accounting Outsourcing (FAO) market is significantly transforming as ongoing technology advances, including agentic AI, are pushing enterprise finance functions beyond traditional automation. This shift presents an opportunity to make finance functions more autonomous and better aligned with evolving business needs. While enterprises recognize this potential, many struggle with limited clarity, competing transformation priorities, and unclear return on investment, which creates uncertainty around the right AI adoption path.

This report helps address these challenges by providing a comprehensive view of how enterprises should assess their AI readiness across finance processes and prioritize AI adoption based on transaction intensity, data readiness, process complexities, and business impact. It also explores how providers are responding to this demand by strengthening their solution ecosystems, including proprietary platforms, deep partnerships with technology providers and hyperscalers, advisory and data management services, and talent upskilling initiatives. Additionally, the report analyzes key market dynamics for 2024-2025 along with future trends, highlighting regional and industry-specific nuances, growth drivers, buyer adoption patterns, deal trends, and evolving buyer priorities.