Beyond Automation: How Stampli’s Cognitive AI Is Solving the Hardest Problem in Accounts Payable
Published in VentureBeat: What You Need to Know About Our Latest Innovation
If you’ve been evaluating AP automation tools, you’ve likely seen many vendors claim “AI-powered” capabilities—often without explaining what the AI actually does. Stampli’s new Cognitive AI, recently covered in VentureBeat, stands out because it tackles the most difficult AP challenge—PO matching—not with templates or rules, but with technology designed to replicate human-level decision-making. Below are five quotes from the article that speak directly to common doubts about automation, each followed by a technical analysis of what they mean for your AP process.
1. “Unlike other AI tools that focus on simple data matching, this technology mimics the complex reasoning and decision-making abilities of experienced AP professionals, fundamentally changing how companies handle PO matching.”
Takeaway: Most automation tools operate on surface-level pattern recognition. They compare invoice fields to purchase orders and flag mismatches—but they can’t reason through inconsistencies or nuances in business logic. Stampli’s Cognitive AI, by contrast, simulates the kind of judgment calls human AP teams make every day. This makes it suitable for environments where real-world data is messy, incomplete, or inconsistent—conditions where traditional automation fails.
2. “Other PO matching tools rely on proximity algorithms to flag simple matches, but these systems achieve success rates of just 20–40%, according to Stampli’s estimates. In contrast, Stampli’s Cognitive AI automates the process almost entirely, achieving a 97% success rate in controlled tests.”
Takeaway: Proximity-based matching is fine for clean data, but real AP environments rarely offer that luxury. A 97% success rate means Stampli’s system is handling edge cases that normally require manual review—quantity mismatches, unit price discrepancies, partial deliveries, or layered tax rules. If you’re evaluating vendors, insist on this level of precision, not just generic claims of “automation.”
3. “Feldman said this marks the first time such a high level of human-like reasoning has been integrated into financial software… ‘We’ve spent years orienting our technical architecture, data warehouses, and corporate structure around AI.’”
Takeaway: Integrating large language models into enterprise workflows is not a plug-and-play exercise. Stampli didn’t bolt AI onto a legacy system—they built infrastructure from the ground up to support it. This matters because successful AI systems depend on data context, clean labeling, and feedback loops. If you want automation that evolves with your processes, foundational design like this is non-negotiable.
4. “The real problem of Accounts Payable is that it’s a collaboration process, not just an approval process. People have to figure out what was ordered, what was received, and how to allocate costs.”
Takeaway: This is the operational reality of AP—and most automation systems ignore it. If you’ve tried traditional AP tools, you know they often break down when coordination is needed across departments. Stampli’s design treats AP as a cross-functional collaboration, not a siloed transaction. That’s a fundamental shift, and one that reduces the back-and-forth emails, Slack threads, and missing context that slow you down today.
5. “The AI matched at 100% on every line on each of the 22 invoices that came in that day… It only took me 15 minutes to review those invoices, compared to the many days it would have taken my team and I to process them manually.”
Takeaway: Quantitative, line-level performance matters. A claim like “we save time” is meaningless unless it’s tied to actual metrics. Here, you’re seeing Cognitive AI work at scale—handling multi-page invoices with zero misses. That’s not just faster, it’s safer: fewer manual touchpoints mean fewer errors and tighter controls.
Conclusion: Why This Isn’t Just Another AI Press Release
VentureBeat’s coverage doesn’t gloss over technical complexity—it highlights it. And that’s the point. Stampli’s Cognitive AI isn’t a generic AI label—it’s a purpose-built, field-tested system trained to solve the real bottlenecks in accounts payable.
If you’ve been waiting to see whether AI can truly take on the messy, high-stakes work of PO matching, this is your proof point. Stampli’s approach isn’t about automating some of your AP—it’s about eliminating the need for manual effort in the hardest parts of the process.
You don’t have to take our word for it. You can see Cognitive AI in action in our webinar on demand.
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