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Why IDC MarketScape Named Emburse a Leader

August 7, 2025

6 min read

Picture of Michele Shepard
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Michele Shepard

Chief Revenue Officer

Emburse

a woman is holding a tablet that says idc on the screen

Summary

Emburse has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape for AI-enabled Travel and Expense applications across Enterprise, Midmarket, and Small Business segments. In this blog, CRO Michele Shepard explains how unifying travel and expense under one intelligent platform gives finance leaders real-time insights and control to drive better business outcomes.

    As Chief Revenue Officer, I’m responsible for our global go-to-market strategy—from revenue operations to pipeline performance. That means millions invested across people, programs, and platforms.

    But here’s the truth: none of it matters if I can’t clearly connect spending to outcomes.

    What did we spend?

    Where did it go?

    What did we get in return?

    Should we do it again?

    These aren’t just finance questions. They’re business questions. And in today’s AI-powered world, the answers need to be instant, accurate, and in context.

    Transparency isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the baseline for every decision we make.

    That’s why unifying Travel and Expense, under one intelligent platform, changes everything. It turns finance from gatekeeper to growth enabler.

    Teams can reimburse faster. Catch fraud before it happens. Cut audit time. And give leaders like me the clarity to prioritize and act.

    That’s what Emburse delivers: real-time insights, embedded intelligence, and complete control—without adding friction for employees.

    We’re not just managing expenses.We’re building expense intelligence that helps companies spend smarter and move faster.

    And that’s why Emburse is redefining what Travel & Expense management should be.

    From Recognition to Momentum

    That’s also why I’m proud to share that Emburse has been named a Leader in three IDC MarketScape reports:

    • IDC MarketScape for AI-Enabled Travel and Expense Applications for Enterprise 2025 Vendor Assessment (doc #US53006525, August 2025)
    • IDC MarketScape for AI-Enabled Travel and Expense Applications for Midmarket 2025 Vendor Assessment (doc # US53006625, August 2025);
    • IDC MarketScape for AI-Enabled Travel and Expense Applications for Small Business 2025 Vendor Assessment (doc # US53006425, August 2025)

    This recognition marks our debut in IDC’s AI-focused MarketScape and continues our trajectory of leadership. To us, this isn’t just analyst recognition. We believe it’s external validation of the work we’ve done to build modern, predictive, and intelligent finance workflows that is purpose-built for today’s challenges and tomorrow’s demands.

    From Fragmented Tools to Unified Workflows

    In 2024, we launched the Emburse Unified Brand, bringing our best-in-class travel and expense solutions together under one platform, one experience, and one purpose.

    Our mission: eliminate friction, simplify spend, and give every business—from high-growth startups to complex global enterprises—the power to work smarter through unified workflows.

    Later that year, we introduced market-specific solutions tailored for Enterprise, Midmarket, and SMB organizations. Whether it's deep global policy enforcement, simplified automation, or fast deployment at scale, our platform now adapts to the needs of real finance teams—without trade-offs.

    This wasn’t just a rebrand. It was a strategic inflection point, laying the groundwork for our next evolution: AI-powered Expense Intelligence.

    Defining the Future: AI-Powered Expense Intelligence

    We’re not just automating tasks, we’re reimagining how intelligence guides spend. That’s why we’re creating a new category: AI-Powered Expense Intelligence.

    Here’s what that looks like in action:

    • Advanced expense capture through OCR and automatic itemization—accurate, fast, and nearly touchless
    • Pre-submission validation that flags issues before they hit approval
    • Predictive automation that learns from past behavior and streamlines future workflows
    • Actionable insights across end-to-end Travel and Expense that surfaces spend trends, anomalies, and opportunities in real time

    It’s all part of our long-term vision: a predictive, touchless, fully compliant T&E experience that empowers both finance and business leaders.

    Why Emburse was recognized in the IDC MarketScape

    “Emburse is also innovating in the category through its travel and expense intelligence strategy, which emphasizes AI-powered automation, predictive insights, and agentic capabilities. Emburse AI is embedded across the platform and leverages proprietary spend data from over one billion transactions to deliver intelligent automation at every stage of the expense life cycle — from receipt capture and categorization to anomaly detection, trip detection, and invoice processing.”IDC MarketScape: Worldwide AI-Enabled Travel and Expense Applications for Midmarket 2025 Vendor Assessment

    With embedded intelligence at the core of our platform, we help travel, finance, and leadership teams:

    • Eliminate manual effort
    • Gain better visibility into spend
    • Accelerate decision making
    • Improve compliance without sacrificing user experience

    A Leader with Purpose and Reinventing the T&E Experience

    We believe this recognition from the IDC MarketScape is not just a milestone. It reflects the strategic lift we’re delivering to organizations of every size. We’re helping transform travel and expense from a necessary function into a meaningful driver of value.

    Whether you're leading a global enterprise, scaling midmarket operations, or managing spend for a growing startup—Emburse delivers the unified workflows and embedded intelligence you need to move faster, stay compliant, and lead with confidence.

    We’re not just building tools. We’re defining what’s next for travel and expense.

    We are excited to share the official report excerpt and press release on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. Stay tuned.