Johnny Wickham, Tax Partner, Tax Technology & Transformation, PwC Ireland: The US leads the AI sector, followed by China and the UK, and Ireland is now attracting a growing number of AI companies, building on its strong track record of US investment. As tax authorities worldwide accelerate their digital transformation, the integration of automation and AI into tax administration is rapidly becoming the norm.
Over 70% of tax administrations globally are already leveraging AI to enhance compliance management, risk assessment, and taxpayer services, with adoption rates rising each year. The Irish Revenue Commissioners, in line with international peers, are investing heavily in digital infrastructure, real-time analytics, and automated compliance checks. Increasingly, tax authorities receive data directly from business systems, moving towards machine-to-machine data exchanges that require minimal human intervention.

The traditional manual approach to tax compliance, which is characterised by spreadsheets and periodic reconciliations, is quickly becoming obsolete. The volume and complexity of tax data is growing exponentially, driven by e-invoicing, digital platforms, and cross-border transactions. Regulatory initiatives such as the EU’s VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) and BEPS 2.0 Pillar Two are further raising compliance expectations, demanding greater agility and precision from tax functions. Irish Revenue will roll out eInvoicing in phases: from November 2028 large corporates must use mandatory eInvoicing and real-time reporting for domestic B2B transactions, from November 2029 these requirements extend to VAT-registered businesses engaged in EU cross-border B2B trading, and from July 2030 they apply to all cross-border EU B2B transactions (Revenue, 2025).

Recent data from the OECD highlights the scale of this transformation. Technologies such as network analysis, machine learning, robotic process automation (RPA), and real-time analytics are now widely used by tax authorities. AI is being applied to detect tax evasion and fraud, assess risk, provide virtual assistance, and support administrative decision-making (See below in Table 1). These advancements mean that tax authorities are operating with a level of technological sophistication that organisations must match to ensure compliance and manage risk effectively.

While traditional automation tools excel at handling repetitive, rule-based tasks, the next frontier is agentic AI with intelligent agents powered by trained machine learning models and natural language processing. These AI agents can interpret unstructured data, adapt to new information, and exploit historical patterns. They can handle complex queries, simulate tax scenarios, and provide real-time, context-aware guidance.

Agentic AI enables end-to-end tax workflow orchestration, integrating data from multiple sources and supporting activities from scenario planning to audit preparation. These agents not only drive efficiency but also empower tax teams to focus on higher-value activities and proactively manage risk.

Adopting advanced tax technology need not be a big-bang overhaul. A phased path with small, targeted automations enables organisations to build capability, fix data and integration issues, and upskill teams. As tax authorities innovate, companies must keep pace to meet compliance and unlock value. The future is agentic, data-driven, and automated. Those that match regulators’ sophistication will navigate change and win advantage.

In the organisations we support, tax tech is treated as an enterprise capability. Where businesses can get data right at the source, they can modernise controls for real-time assurance and design flexible architectures, enabling them to upskill teams, embed explainable AI, and align tax, finance and IT for auditable and resilient automation.

This article appeared in the October 2025 edition of the Irish Tax Monitor.