By Akash Sriram and Arsheeya Bajwa
(Reuters) – Intuit launched an artificial intelligence-powered assistant on Wednesday to help clients in financial decision-making when using its products, ranging from tax-preparation tool TurboTax to bookkeeping software QuickBooks.
The generative AI tool named “Intuit Assist” marks the latest effort by the financial software company to capitalize on the technology that has taken the world by storm after the rise of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Intuit expects the integration of the feature to help level the playing field for small and medium-sized enterprises – its primary customer base – which lack the resources of their larger rivals.
The company said it will help shorten the time taken in tax filings and provide clients faster access to refunds, in addition to offering personalized advice on managing finances.
The service uses the company’s proprietary generative AI (GenAI) operating system designed to run with its own large language models.
Chief Data Officer Ashok Srivastava told Reuters that Intuit’s models “competed favorably” against sophisticated third-party rivals in accuracy tests conducted internally.
“We have a very, very robust testing mechanism that is AI-powered and it’s also human-powered in order to analyze and calculate the accuracy of our models,” he said.
Accuracy is a key concern for companies looking to integrate GenAI into their products, given the technology’s tendency to present made-up information as facts – a behavior popularly described as “hallucinations” among industry experts.
Customers will also be able to talk to experts through Intuit’s Live Platform when they need human assistance, the company said.
The assistant is currently available to all TurboTax customers and select customers of Intuit’s remaining products, with more features lined up for the 2023 tax season, the company said.
(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shweta Agarwal)
