Not So Taxing: Intuit Uses AI to Make Tax Day Easier

Understanding the U.S. tax code can take years of study — it’s 80,000 pages long. Software company Intuit has decided that it’s a job for AI.

Ashok Srivastava, its senior vice president and chief data officer, spoke to AI Podcast host Noah Kravitz about how the company is utilizing machine learning to help customers with taxes and aid small businesses through the financial effects of COVID-19.

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To help small businesses, Intuit has a range of programs such as the Intuit Aid Assist Program, which helps business owners figure out if they’re eligible for loans from the government. Other programs include cash flow forecasting, which estimates how much money businesses will have within a certain time frame.

And in the long term, Intuit is working on a machine learning program capable of using photos of financial documents to automatically extract necessary information and fill in tax documents.

Key Points From This Episode:

Intuit frequently uses an AI technique called knowledge engineering, which converts written regulations or rules into code, providing the information behind programs such as TurboTax.
Intuit also provides natural language processing and chatbot services, which use a customer’s questions as well as their feedback and product usage to determine the best reply.

Tweetables:

“We’re spending our time not only analyzing data, but thinking about new ways that we can use artificial intelligence in order to help small businesses.” — Ashok Srivastava [10:23]

“Data and artificial intelligence are going to come into play again and again to help people … make the best decisions about their own financial future.” — Ashok Srivastava [26:43]

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