Esker has now been placed in the Leaders tier by two analyst houses within the same week. Gartner put the company there in its 2026 Magic Quadrant for Accounts Payable Applications, a report dated 18 June 2026. Forrester did the same in The Forrester Wave: Accounts Payable Invoice Automation Software, Q2 2026. Esker announced both on June 23.
For Gartner, it is a repeat. Esker was named a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for the second year running.
The mechanics matter here. Esker credits its placement to features that sound dull but sit at the center of the job: invoice capture that needs no templates, and what it calls agentic AI that handles invoice exceptions faster and more consistently. Exceptions are where accounts payable teams lose their days, since every mismatched invoice means someone checking it by hand.
Forrester’s vendor profile pointed elsewhere. It said Esker’s vision stands out for customer centricity, and that the software offers AI-powered communication for internal users and suppliers when an invoice is in dispute. The report called Esker “a good fit for organizations looking for streamlined workflows.” Disputes are the slow, email-heavy end of the process, so automating that exchange is a concrete selling point rather than a slogan.
Scott McDermott, Esker’s chief financial officer, framed it in the company’s own terms. “We believe these evaluations underscore Esker’s vision for AI-powered finance and our commitment to helping AP teams keep pace with evolving business demands,” he said. He added that as AP becomes a more strategic value driver for finance, Esker intends to give the Office of the CFO the automation, intelligence and connected workflows to improve agility, visibility and control.
Note who is talking. The announcement came from Esker, which describes itself as the leading AI automation suite for the Office of the CFO, and it is full of “Esker believes” phrasing. The company says invoice volumes are rising, processes are growing more complex and regulatory requirements keep shifting, and that AP is moving past plain transaction processing toward a more strategic role in finance.
Both analyst firms attach disclaimers to their reports, and the catch is that those disclaimers matter. Forrester says it does not endorse any company or product in its research and does not advise anyone to choose a vendor based on its ratings. Gartner says much the same, adding that it does not advise technology users to pick only the highest-rated vendors, and that its publications are opinion rather than statements of fact.
Esker says it plans to keep investing in agentic AI, intelligent decision support and connected finance processes. The goal, in its words, is to help organizations move faster, manage exceptions proactively and improve working capital performance.
