Accounts payable is entering a new era. After years of focusing on digitization and process automation, organizations are now applying artificial intelligence to improve decision-making, accelerate workflows, and transform AP into a more intelligent, data-driven business function.
This article series is based on the findings from State of AP 2026: AI Rising, a new research report sponsored by Medius and xSuite. Drawing on the perspectives of 194 accounts payable, P2P, and finance leaders, the research explores how organizations are adopting AI, where they are realizing the greatest value, the operational challenges they continue to face, and the capabilities that distinguish top-performing AP organizations.
Throughout this series, we’ll examine the report’s most important findings, including the current state of AP, emerging AI use cases, automation trends, AI readiness and maturity, and the strategies leading organizations are using to prepare for more autonomous finance operations. Whether your organization is beginning its AI journey or expanding existing initiatives, these articles will provide research-backed insights to help guide the next phase of AP transformation.
In Part Three of our series, we’re exploring the major AP challenges slowing processes and impacting performance.
Challenges in 2026: Familiar Friction, Rising Stakes
The challenges facing AP in 2026 are also not new. Slow approvals, high exception rates, and limited visibility into invoice and payment activity have appeared on AP challenge lists for years. What has changed is the cost of leaving them unresolved. As expectations of the function continue to expand, longstanding operational inefficiencies are becoming increasingly difficult to absorb.
Slow invoice and payment approvals top the challenge list at 48%, tied with high exception rates. The two are structurally linked. Exceptions slow approvals. Delayed approvals create payment bottlenecks, increase supplier friction, and consume valuable staff time. Together, they represent one of the most persistent barriers to AP performance.
Lack of visibility into invoice and payment data, cited by 22% of respondents, remains another foundational challenge. Visibility affects nearly every aspect of AP performance, from exception management and cash forecasting to supplier service and fraud prevention. Organizations cannot improve what they cannot clearly see, which helps explain why reporting, analytics, and visibility remain such prominent priorities across the profession.
The challenges themselves are familiar. What is new is the growing availability of tools designed to address them. Automation, analytics, and AI are providing AP teams with new ways to reduce manual effort, improve visibility, and strengthen controls. Whether those capabilities translate into meaningful performance improvement depends less on the technology itself than on how effectively organizations deploy and use it.
Access this exclusive research today by downloading the State of AP 2026: AI Rising report now.
