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When AI Falls Short, Only 8% Blame the Technology, Latch Research Finds
The real gap is missing context. Latch launches AI sidekicks that learn by watching accountants handle recurring work while eliciting questions to automate anything from reconciliations to month-end close.
SEATTLE, November 10, 2026–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AI automation is stalling on missing context, not poor technology, according to Latch’s State of AI Automation at Work 2026, a survey of 742 U.S. working professionals released today, along with Latch’s new accounting automation platform.
Among respondents whose AI project fell short, 57% blamed missing context, such as bad data or a system that didn’t understand how the work is done. Only 8% said the technology wasn’t capable enough. Other findings:
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AI still needs a babysitter. 73% say AI output needs a person to intervene at least sometimes, rising to 84% among finance and accounting professionals.
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Most work isn’t written down. Respondents estimate only 41% of recurring work is documented well enough to hand off.
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Exceptions are the rule. 83% say their regular work involves judgment calls written instructions don’t cover.
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Know-how walks out the door. 61% say their organization rehired a former employee for their institutional knowledge.
“AI isn’t missing intelligence. It’s missing what your best accountants know, such as which variance to ignore and which vendor always needs a second approval. Latch lets accountants teach that once, hand off the repetitive steps, and focus on the judgment and advisory work only they can do. Their expertise doesn’t get replaced. It gets amplified.”
-Stefan Kalb, Cofounder and CEO, Latch
Unlike most AI tools, which at most capture screenshots or record video to get a deeper understanding of work, Latch actually asks questions, eliciting information about what happens when processes differ from written procedure. Employees just show Latch a task while Latch watches and asks questions, building institutional context about what happens when the process isn’t clear. Latch then builds a “sidekick” that automates the work to save time, reduce errors, and turn the focus to the interpretation of the results.
Latch’s own finance team turned a month-end Xero-to-Google Sheets workflow into a scheduled sidekick, cutting more than 200 clicks to about a dozen and saving 15 minutes of manual work per run.
“AI can be a game changer to automate financial and accounting workflows. But securely implementing AI across your team can be difficult and costly, especially when that process involves significant investment from your IT team. Latch understands natural language and video intuitively, asking questions the same way a human teammate would, and uses that as the basis of building useful AI automations.”
-Stefan Kalb, Cofounder and CEO, Latch
