Nominal Declares 'Agentic' AI the New Standard for Accounting

NEW YORK, NY – May 20, 2026 – In a move signaling a potential tectonic shift in corporate finance, AI company Nominal today announced a comprehensive rebrand centered on the formal declaration of a new software category: Agentic Performance Management (APM). The company, which has already saved finance teams over 50,000 hours of manual work since its 2023 launch, is betting that the future of accounting isn't just automated, but autonomous.

Nominal's founders, Guy Leibovitz and Golan Kopichinsky, are positioning this as the "Cursor moment for accounting," referencing the AI-powered tool that transformed how developers write code. Their argument is that while past innovations offered better assistance, the next leap is for systems to execute complex work from start to finish.

"The last major shift in the ERP market was the move to the cloud over two decades ago," said Guy Leibovitz, CEO and Co-founder of Nominal. "Everything since has been incremental—better dashboards, better alerts. But the work itself is still manual... We're seeing the same shift in accounting—from systems that assist, to systems that actually execute the work."

The Dawn of the Autonomous Accountant

Nominal's newly minted category, Agentic Performance Management, is built on a crucial distinction: autonomy, not just automation. For years, the $220 billion Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) market has sold the promise of automation. Yet, finance teams often found these systems were good at flagging tasks, sending reminders, and organizing data, but still required a human to perform the core work and push workflows across the finish line.

APM, as defined by Nominal, introduces intelligent agents that take ownership of entire processes. These agents are designed to autonomously handle tasks like reconciling complex transactions, generating journal entries, analyzing variances, and even closing the books without waiting for human prompts. Where traditional automation might stop when it encounters an exception, an agentic system is designed to analyze the problem, apply logic, and resolve it.

While "Agentic Performance Management" is Nominal's proprietary term, the concept taps into a broader, industry-wide evolution. Major enterprise players are also moving toward a more autonomous vision of finance. Both SAP, with its "Joule agents" and "Business AI," and Oracle, with its "AI agents for ERP," are developing capabilities that aim to automate end-to-end financial processes. This industry convergence suggests that Nominal is not just creating a buzzword, but is at the forefront of a genuine technological movement to build an "agent-to-agent economy" within the enterprise.

"This isn't the next tool. It's the next era," Leibovitz stated. "We created Agentic Performance Management because no existing category described what we actually do. We don't assist finance teams. We act for them."

Tackling a Twin Crisis in Finance

The push for autonomous systems comes at a critical juncture for the finance industry, which is grappling with two converging crises: antiquated technology and a severe talent shortage. The ERP systems that form the backbone of most corporations were largely designed for a previous era, focused on recording transactions rather than proactive execution. This has led to widespread inefficiencies, with finance professionals mired in manual, repetitive work.

Compounding this technological deficit is a growing human one. Industry reports and government data confirm a significant talent gap in the accounting profession. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects faster-than-average growth for accountants and auditors through 2034, primarily to replace a wave of retiring professionals. This demand is set against a backdrop of declining enrollment in accounting programs and a shrinking pipeline of new Certified Public Accountants (CPAs), a situation that has led to claims of over 300,000 missing professionals from the U.S. workforce.

Nominal's APM is positioned as a direct response to this dual challenge. By layering its intelligent agents on top of existing ERPs, the company offers a way to modernize operations without a prohibitively expensive and disruptive "rip-and-replace" overhaul. More importantly, it offers a way to scale financial operations with intelligence rather than headcount, freeing overworked teams from the drudgery of manual reconciliation and allowing them to focus on more strategic, high-value work.

From Boardroom Concept to Balance Sheet Reality

Backed by $30 million in funding from investors including Next47 and Workday Ventures, Nominal has moved quickly to prove its model. The company's platform is already deployed across hundreds of entities, managing over $1 billion in book value.

Early customer results illustrate the tangible impact of an agentic approach. Team Car Care, the largest Jiffy Lube franchisee in the U.S. with nearly 500 locations, was struggling to manage inventory reconciliations for its massive daily transaction volume. The task consumed the time of a four-person finance team. After implementing Nominal, that work is now handled by a single employee.

Matt Castaway, CFO of Team Car Care, emphasized that this was not about cutting jobs. "Adding Nominal on top of it has allowed us to take that person and shift them over to different work," he explained. The technology enabled a fundamental change in operations, moving the team from a chaotic month-end scramble to what Castaway calls a "continuous close." He added, "You're just always closing, right? And so it doesn't get backed up."

Similarly, Josh Ramos, Controller at multi-entity solar company GSPP, found relief from a process he described as a "nightmare." Before Nominal, consolidating financials across numerous solar projects was a painstaking manual process. "After Nominal, intercompany eliminations and consolidation happen automatically, saving us countless hours and keeping our books audit-ready," Ramos said.

Redefining the Finance Team of the Future

The rise of agentic systems promises a profound transformation in the roles and responsibilities of finance professionals. As AI agents take over the repetitive, rules-based tasks that have historically defined accounting work, the human role is set to elevate. The accountant of tomorrow may spend less time in spreadsheets and more time reviewing the outputs of AI, investigating anomalies, and providing the strategic, analytical insights that drive business decisions.

This shift represents more than just an efficiency gain; it's a structural reimagining of the finance function. Companies that embrace this change can build leaner, more agile teams capable of delivering faster closes, fewer errors, and deeper business insights. For the finance professionals themselves, it offers a path away from burnout and toward a more engaging, impactful career.

Nominal is betting that the structural advantages offered by agentic systems will quickly become a competitive necessity. As AI agents move from being a novelty to core enterprise infrastructure, the companies that delegate work to them first will be able to operate with a speed and intelligence that their peers cannot match.

"Headcount can't scale infinitely," Leibovitz concluded. "But intelligence can. The finance teams that understand this first will define the next decade of their industries."