Can artificial intelligence really transform finance and accounting at the accelerated pace now expected? A recent study from Grand View Research predicts the market for AI tools in finance will grow at a rate of almost 40% a year between now and 2033, when the market researcher expects it to be worth almost $97 billion at a global level.

Such growth would be phenomenal, but Ramnandan Krishnamurthy, CEO and co-founder of Maximor , thinks predictions like these are far from fanciful. “We’ve found that core technical innovation and business value are getting real traction from customers,” he says.

I first interviewed the founders of Maximor almost a year ago, as the New York-based start-up unveiled a $9 million seed funding round. The company’s progress since then underlines the potential for leaders in this market; Krishnamurthy says sales have grown 35 times’ over since the fund-raising, with annual recurring revenues now running into several million dollars.

The appeal of innovators such as Maximor is that AI tools can take on much of the manual work currently carried out by finance teams, from revenue recognition and billing to accounts payable and reporting. Finance professionals then take on a supervisory role, checking the work produced by the tools, and have more time to spend on value-additive and strategic tasks.

However, Krishnamurthy also has a warning: not all AI tools for accounting and finance are created equal, he says. In particular, he draws a distinction between solutions capable of carrying out individual tasks and those sophisticated enough to manage entire finance workflows from end-to-end. The latter deliver significantly more value, he argues, while finance teams buying the former have to work out how to get a bunch of different automated tools to work together.

Agentic AI is critical to the automation of workflows, Krishnamurthy argues. Maximor’s approach, he explains, incorporates a team of AI agents that can operate at each stage of a particular workflow in finance so that the whole process can be handed over to the technology. The agents work within the company’s enterprise resource platform, which provides a system of record.

Krishnamurthy says that in the areas of finance where Maximor operates, the solution can now handle 98% of the work required; the remaining 2% consists of exceptions and anomalies, where the agents raise queries with finance professionals and learn from the answers so they can do the work for themselves next time.

“It’s the difference between automating a task and running finance autonomously,” he argues. “Finance teams are not short of software, but they are short of systems willing to take responsibility for the work.”

Maximor’s sales over the past year – mostly to mid- and large-sized enterprises – suggest this argument resonates with customers. One early adopter of the company’s technology says this approach is key to driving greater productivity, but that trust is also critical. “We looked at plenty of tools that automate individual finance tasks, but you still end up with your team stitching the work together and owning every outcome," says Sloan Session, the CFO of Dura Software said: “With Maximor, it takes responsibility for the whole workflow, not just the task. It runs the operation but, critically, it knows when to pull us in. This builds trust.”

Such testimonials will be important in an incredibly competitive marketplace. In the first half of 2026 alone, six finance and accounting-focused start-ups with AI tools raised more than $550 million between then. Early-stage businesses such as Fieldguide, Accrual and Basis all offer a range of finance solutions – and often promise a similar whole-workflow approach to Maximor.

Equally, blue-chip technology providers in the finance and accounting market – with large sales and marketing budgets – are also highly active. They range from the accounting software specialists such as Sage, Intuit and Xero to consultants such as PwC and SAP.

However, Maximor’s investors believe the company can hold its own in this space, with last year’s seed round led by Foundation Capital, with participation from Gaia Ventures, Boldcap and a number of major finance and technology leaders. "Finance software has spent years automating individual tasks while leaving the team responsible for stitching the work together," argues Ashu Garg at Foundation Capital. "Maximor’s growth shows that CFOs are ready to hand over complete workflows when autonomy comes with the control and auditability that finance demands."