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Avalara has made its Aviator tax and compliance agent hub generally available as businesses face more digital and real-time tax rules across Europe.
The software is designed to automate parts of tax and compliance work that sit between existing systems and still require manual intervention. It creates a record of each action and routes decisions to staff when judgment or approval is needed.
Avalara also pointed to customer examples from Fortnum & Mason and ASOS to show how retailers are managing cross-border tax and regulatory demands as they expand into more markets.
Fortnum & Mason, which ships to customers in nearly 90 countries, uses automation to calculate sales tax, import tax, and duties, including classifying food and non-food goods.
"When delivering across multiple countries and some unique destinations, accurate tax and duties calculations are essential," said Nataliya Schipka, Director of Finance at Fortnum & Mason. "Automating cross-border compliance allows us to focus on serving customers wherever they are, rather than being constrained by the complexity of compliance."
ASOS was also cited as a user of compliance automation as it manages product launches, market entry, and regulatory changes while trying to maintain a consistent checkout process for shoppers in different countries.
The move highlights a broader shift in European tax administration. Governments are moving reporting closer to the point of transaction, increasing pressure on companies to keep records, classifications, and filings aligned across multiple systems.
Automation push
Aviator can handle tasks including mapping products to tax codes, validating exemption certificates, generating tax matrices, configuring custom rules, and analysing results across applications. Avalara positions the software as a way to reduce manual compliance work while preserving oversight by tax and finance teams.
The launch also reflects wider interest in agentic AI, which suppliers present as software that can carry out multi-step processes rather than simply answer questions or generate text. In compliance functions, that approach is being tested against tasks that require traceability, audit records, and formal approval paths.
"AI is changing how work gets done across every industry," said Hugo Sarrazin, Chief Executive Officer at Avalara. "But agentic AI is different. It can execute multi-step work, continuously monitor what is changing, and bring people in when judgment or approval is required. The opportunity is automation and control, not one at the expense of the other. In tax, the calculation still has to be right. The filing still has to be defensible. And the person accountable is still a person."
Avalara says the product is informed by more than £2.1 trillion in transactions it handles annually. It also processes more than 54 billion AvaTax API calls each year.
European rules
Avalara linked the launch to changes in European invoicing and reporting requirements. Governments across the region are making compliance more digital and more closely tied to individual transactions, with e-invoicing rules extending to cross-border business-to-business activity across the EU from 2030.
To address that environment, customers can connect through a single global API and activate country-specific mandates through configuration rather than repeated reimplementation. The aim is to reduce the need to rebuild integrations each time a new national rule is introduced.
Avalara also pointed to Versori by Avalara, which it described as an integration layer for bringing tax and compliance data into enterprise systems where work already begins, such as ERP, eCommerce, and finance platforms. It says the software uses AI agents to research, build, test, and deploy connectors in a shorter timeframe than traditional integration methods.
In Europe, Avalara says it has already been approved as a platform in France. It expects readiness for Germany and Spain on later timelines as it builds support for new national requirements.
The focus on tax technology comes as companies face rising administrative strain from selling across borders, especially in sectors such as retail, where product ranges, indirect tax treatments, and shipping destinations can vary widely. For businesses such as Fortnum & Mason and ASOS, the challenge is not only calculating the right tax at checkout but also keeping compliance processes current as rules change market by market.
Much of that work has historically remained manual even after businesses adopted software for individual compliance tasks, leaving finance and tax teams to bridge gaps between systems and approvals.