Airbase - Case Study

Proposed and designed a feature that solves the most overlooked gap in Accounts Payable automation - vendor invoices arriving in email inboxes that no one captures until a human notices them.

Using research from Forrester, APQC, and IFOL, I established that 66% of AP teams still manually enter invoice data, 55% of US invoices are paid late, and invoice data capture from email is Forrester's #1 agentic AI use case for AP in 2026.

The proposed solution passively & ambiently monitors a company's AP inbox via read-only Gmail and Outlook OAuth, detects vendor invoices using an AI classifier, and feeds them directly into the existing PO approval workflow - zero manual upload, zero vendor behaviour change. The case covered dual value for customer and company, a RICE-prioritised user story roadmap, a phased launch plan with measurable gate criteria, six anticipated risks with mitigations, and a working prototype demonstrating the full flow from inbox connection to invoice authorisation.