Key Insights from an MBA Intern: How Advanced AI is Transforming Tax Filing Experiences

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Intuit Engineering

4 min readAug 9, 2024

As I conclude my MBA internship at Intuit with the TurboTax team, I reflect on the exciting technologies I’ve encountered. This summer, I’ve seen firsthand how the company is using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve tax filing experiences for millions of people. Being new to the U.S. tax filing process myself, I’ve seen firsthand how technology is transforming what can be a complex and confusing experience, especially for immigrants and first-time filers.

I interned as a product manager, where I’ve had the opportunity to work with–and learn from–some of the smartest people at Intuit who are building innovative solutions with AI at the core. From what I’ve observed and briefly worked on, the company’s investment in AI-driven innovation over the past decade is paying off for its 100 million consumer and small business customers. Already, Intuit’s financial technology platform produces 65 billion machine learning (ML) predictions daily, employs natural language processing to handle over 25 million conversations every year, and runs 2 million models in production per day for small business transaction categorization.

In this blog, I’ll briefly share how Intuit is applying advanced AI and ML in TurboTax to transform the tax filing experience for millions of consumers.

The transformational benefits of AI-Driven personalization

During my internship, one of the projects I worked on involved leveraging machine learning (ML) models to recommend specific content to customers across different U.S. tax peak cycles. These cycles include the first peak early in the year, the second peak during the primary tax season in April, and the third peak later in the year, giving me insight into the customer benefits of timely, personalized insights to simplify and enhance tax filing experiences. Serving up one-to-one versus one-to-many experience enables Intuit to dynamically respond to a customer’s unique needs with the most relevant information.

Paramount to this personalization initiative are engagement models, rules-based and ML-based, respectively — fortified with clickstream signals — to create hyper-personalized recommendations and explanations. Coming from a software engineering background, where rules-based logic typically guides customer interactions in product offerings, it was refreshing to see firsthand how ML-based models are adapted to influence interaction based on real-time learning.

A strong commitment to responsible AI & data stewardship

One of my favorite courses in my first year at Darden School of Business was Business Ethics. Lively class conversations often centered around the responsibility for big tech to protect customer data and to use it responsibly — with customer consent.

One of Intuit’s operating values that keep technologists grounded is Integrity Without Compromise. Intuit safeguards customer data and protects privacy using industry-leading technology and practices. Essentially, morals before markets.

It’s been an incredible experience to work for a company with a strong commitment to responsible AI principles and data stewardship to guide how the company operates and scales AI experiences with its customers’ best interests in mind.

Seamlessly combining AI & human expertise instills confidence

I’m proud to have had an opportunity to work alongside such a talented team this tax season with Intuit’s Consumer Group to contribute in a small way to our success. Through early investments in building an AI-driven expert platform, where AI supercharges human experts, and human experts supercharge AI, Intuit is serving customers at the cutting edge.

On April 15 U.S. tax day, Intuit logged 185 billion real-time transactions and processed 14 petabytes of real-time data all in one day. We processed 500 million user requests and 11 million transactions per second across 50 billion data points. To learn more, check out this post-tax season corporate blog.

Applying AI to disrupt age-old industries like taxes

TurboTax’s integration of AI and ML technologies has transformed tax preparation, making it more accessible and user-friendly. By providing personalized assistance, real-time accuracy checks, and deep explanations, TurboTax helps users navigate the complexities of tax filing with confidence and ease.

Augmented by human experts with services such as TurboTax Live Full Service and TurboTax Verified Pros further enhances the user experience. Altogether ensuring that all tax situations, from simple to complex, are handled efficiently and effectively. As Intuit continues to innovate with AI, TurboTax remains a leading choice for individuals seeking a reliable and comprehensive tax preparation solution.

Many thanks to my Intuit friends & colleagues

I want to thank my manager, Principal Product Manager, David Zeng, and my mentor, Senior Product Manager, Ukemeobong Owoh, for their input and patience in answering my many questions. I also appreciate my Intuit TurboTax teammates and fellow interns at the San Diego office for making this a worthwhile experience.

As I head back to campus, I’m taking with me a new appreciation for the intersection of technology and finance. Who knew taxes could be so interesting? Despite my eight years of experience as a software engineer, this summer internship has broadened my view on identifying market opportunities with both new and existing technologies. It has also reinforced my belief that we’re only beginning to tap into the potential of AI.

To my fellow and future interns: if you get the chance to work at a place leveraging mainstream or emerging tech like AI/ML to disrupt age-old industries like taxes, jump on it. You might be surprised at what you learn — I know I was!

For now, I’d recommend exploring career opportunities and joining Intuit’s talent community.

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