How Intuit is using agentic AI to automate complex business tasks

Advancing business automation with agentic AI: Intuit has announced significant enhancements to its Generative AI Operating System (GenOS), introducing agentic AI workflows to improve its AI and data capabilities across its suite of business tools.

• The company’s multi-year journey to integrate AI capabilities has led to the development of Intuit Assist, an AI assistant powered by the GenOS platform.
• Intuit’s new agentic AI features, currently in testing, are scheduled for end-user launch in mid-2025.
• The GenOS framework is being expanded with enhanced security, usability, and functions to enable agentic AI workflows.

Practical applications for real-world business challenges: Intuit is focusing on addressing tangible issues faced by businesses, with cash flow management identified as a key initial use case for the new agentic AI workflows.

• The agentic workflows can process various types of customer information, including emails, documents, and images, to automate accounts receivable and payable tasks.
• This automation aims to help businesses manage their cash flow more effectively, ensuring timely bill payments.
• Ashok Srivastava, Intuit’s chief data officer, emphasized that human expertise will still play a crucial role in overseeing these processes.

Dynamic insights and financial transparency: Beyond cash flow management, Intuit is developing capabilities to provide comprehensive insights into business finances using advanced conversational systems.

• The AI-powered system will offer dynamically produced insights and answers to customer questions about financial situations, tax information, and compliance.
• This feature aims to help users better understand their financial domain and make informed decisions.

Addressing AI concerns with GenSRF: As AI becomes more integral to business operations, Intuit has taken proactive steps to address concerns about security, transparency, and environmental impact.

• The GenSRF (Security, Risk and Fraud) module in the GenOS framework plays a crucial role in ensuring responsible AI development.
• GenSRF works alongside the Gen Runtime component of GenOS to implement AI safety measures.
• The module includes built-in guardrails for responsible development of generative AI applications, with extensible and configurable features.
• It allows Intuit to embed safety, privacy, transparency, and security controls directly into the user experience.

Future developments and integration: Intuit plans to continue enhancing GenOS and launching new capabilities based on customer feedback, with a key focus on integrating traditional AI with generative AI technologies.

• The company aims to develop a comprehensive understanding of both traditional and generative AI capabilities.
• This approach is expected to transform how customers have work done for them, setting Intuit apart from competitors who may be solely focused on generative and agentic AI.

Analyzing deeper: Balancing innovation and responsibility in AI development: Intuit’s approach to AI integration demonstrates a careful balance between pushing the boundaries of technology and maintaining responsible development practices. By combining traditional AI with cutting-edge generative and agentic AI technologies, the company is positioning itself to offer more comprehensive and reliable solutions to its users. However, as these AI-driven tools become more autonomous in handling complex financial tasks, it will be crucial to monitor their real-world performance and impact on businesses, particularly in areas like cash flow management where errors could have significant consequences. The success of Intuit’s agentic AI initiative will likely depend on how well it can maintain human oversight and transparency while delivering on the promise of increased automation and efficiency.