COMPARISON

R&D Tax Credit Automation

Cut down R&D tax credit processing from weeks to just hours. Let AI Agents handle document extraction, QRE calculations, and IRS form generation, so you can focus on higher-level decisions.

Trusted by the best

The Problem CPAs Face
Manual Processing Bottlenecks

Processing R&D tax credits typically requires 1 to 40 hours per client. CPAs must extract W-2 data from various formats, and much of this work is repetitive and straightforward.

Scaling Constraints

As companies grow, training new CPAs can take months, but clients expect faster results. Keeping up is challenging, and manual reviews are unfeasible.

Multiple Data Formats

Some clients send clean Excel files, while others send scanned PDFs from various sources. W-2s vary in format, and time-tracking data is scattered across systems, making a custom approach necessary and making automation seem difficult.

Audit Trail Requirements

Every calculation must be documented with case law, regulations, and client details to pass IRS review. However, manual records are hard to keep consistent.

How Adopt AI Solves It
Extract W2 Data Automatically

Intelligent OCR Pipeline processes W2s (scanned or digital), Excel sheets, call transcripts, and time exports in minutes. Low-confidence items are flagged for review.

Build Employee Ledgers Automatically

Structured data from documents becomes a queryable database tracking employees by name, title, wages, and state. It automatically detects hires, promotions, role changes, and flags wage mismatches and suspicious allocations before CPAs review.

Calculate QRE Without Guessing

Bulk aggregations use natural language, and complex queries go through an RAG framework. Pre-approved formulas avoid any unsupervised AI math. Calculations match trusted formulas. New formulas are first tested and approved before use.

Generate Technical Documentation

Draft technical memorandums with proper citations. Each answer cites source documents with inline references and maintains an IRS-ready audit trail.

Populate Forms Automatically

AI agents automatically fill out credit forms and generate a complete RTC workbook in your current Excel template format, eliminating the need for reformatting or manual data transfer.

Human-in-the-Loop Dashboard

CPA’s are always in control. AI summaries show context and reasoning for escalations. Free-form chat popup to handle edge cases. All decisions are logged for compliance.

Integrations

DISCOVERY

ZAPI

Discovers API behavior from live applications through browser-based exploration, producing a usable catalog of actions.

ACTIONS

ZACTION

Transforms discovered behaviors into validated, reusable actions with inputs, outputs, and guardrails.

EXECUTION

Agent Builder

Builds goal-driven agents using natural language or configuration, then deploys with governance and observability.

Capability Comparison
Capability matrix
Capability
RPA Platforms
AI Agent builder
Limited
Yes
Legacy system support
Limited
Yes
Browser and UI-layer execution
Limited
Supported through ZAPI & ZACTION
Multi-surface agent deployment
Limited
Supported
Goal-driven agent execution
Limited
Yes
Embedded deployment surfaces
RPA environment
SDK, Extension, MCP
Where Each Platform Concentrates Value
Capability
RPA Platforms
UI and Browser Execution
Goal-Driven Agent Execution
Embedded Product Deployment
API Governance
Enterprise Integration Architecture

Focus chart shows emphasis, not quantified metrics.

Best-fit Guidance
Choose RPA Platforms when

You're prioritizing structured UI automation at scale and:

Repetitive, deterministic UI workflows dominate operations.

Primary need is desktop or legacy task automation.

Automation teams are structured around RPA programs.

Choose Adopt AI when

Best aligned with teams seeking agentic automation beyond UI scripting and:

Want outcome driven execution with IT governance, oversight, verification and recovery.

Looking to have agents built into your product, or made available through MCP and other platforms.

Require deployment flexibility, compliance-grade governance, and a commercial model aligned to outcomes.  

Enterprise governance without slowing teams
Choose Adopt AI, the Agentic AI Platform for Connected Enteprises

Convert any application’s full functionality into agent usable tooling, instantly!