A system and method for fast, automatic balancing of an AC bridge utilizes a two-stage process. During the first stage, the phase of the bridge voltage is matched, while during the second stage, the amplitude is minimized. The voltage matching process is based on halving the range of measured voltage amplitudes at each step, using two samples to identify the next half-range, resulting in an n-step recursive algorithm with “n” defining the resolution of the process. As such, the phase-matching process requires only three samples per step, and only four steps for 1° resolution. Consequently, the computational power needed to carry out the two-stage process is minimal, requiring only comparison of the three sampled voltages, thereby resulting in a balancing process that is performed fast and efficiently.