At the 2024 Intuit Connect conference in October, the company’s CEO apologized to tax preparers for Intuit’s “Tax Breakup” ad that encouraged businesses to ditch their accountants and CPAs in favor of TurboTax.
It’s not surprising that the ad drew strong criticism from the accountancy community, and it was pulled from the air shortly after it first aired. When Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi formally apologized at the Intuit Accountant’s conference in Las Vegas, he said it was a mistake to air the ad, suggesting that Intuit “values our partnership” with accountants.
As I listened to his apology, it struck me that this didn’t feel heartfelt, as Goodarzi did not bother to mention their “valued” accountant partnership at all during Intuit’s annual investor conference held earlier in September. What he did say at that time was that the Assisted Tax market is “ripe for disruption.” As a result, the apology came across as insincere – or perhaps I should say “artificial.”
Goodarzi is correct that software automation will disrupt the tax preparation market. as software firms like Intuit roll out more AI in their products. Indeed, they plan to introduce Intuit Assist, an AI powered financial assistance tool to automate accounting tasks, and which will likely replace some tax preparers’ business for simple returns.
Ultimately, the company should have been more diplomatic – not to mention, truthful and consistent – by repeating the same themes at both of their conferences. After all, accountants are major users of their products. Further, given the ubiquity of iPhones and the powerful influence of social media today, it’s almost impossible for a large company to tell incompatible stories to different audiences without the public discovering and publicizing the inconsistencies.
The Las Vegas conference did feature many other affiliated software companies with AI capabilities to help with projects, such as month-end reporting, bill payments. and financial forecasting. I’m happy to say that we already are using some of these tools at Laurentian with positive results.
However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that AI will replace the more routine and simple tasks that accountants have done in the past. The accounting profession will have to learn how to adapt to this new reality. In any case, for those of us accountants who are cautiously riding the AI wave, it’s not just a challenging time, but a fascinating one, as well. It’s clear that as the industry is maturing, and with more and more AI automation just around the corner, there will continue to be more ways for AI-aware and AI-adopting accountants to help businesses better manage their operations.