Intuit's AI Gamble: Balancing Job Loss with Future Growth Intuit, the company behind popular products like QuickBooks and TurboTax, is making a significant shift towards AI and generative AI, which involves laying off 1,800 employees, approximately 10% of its workforce. Despite this, CEO Sasan Goodarzi emphasizes that it's an investment in the future, with plans to replace the lost positions with new hires in key areas like engineering, product development, and customer-facing roles. This move highlights the growing influence of AI on business strategies, as companies adapt to the changing nature of work and the need to develop skills in data science, machine learning, and software engineering to thrive in the AI-powered future.
Summary
Here's a summary of Intuit's approach to staffing and AI:
- 1. Major restructuring: Intuit is laying off 1,800 employees (10% of its workforce) while simultaneously planning to hire 1,800 new workers as part of a major AI-focused restructuring effort.
- 2. AI investment: The company is heavily investing in AI and generative AI technologies, viewing this as a critical moment in its history and essential for future success.
- 3. Reallocation of resources: Intuit is shifting resources towards key growth areas, particularly those involving AI and data science. This includes accelerating investments in their AI-powered financial assistant, Intuit Assist.
- 4. Targeted hiring: The company plans to hire primarily in engineering, product development, data science, and customer-facing roles, with a strong emphasis on AI expertise.
- 5. Performance-based cuts: A significant portion of the layoffs (about 1,050) are due to employees "not meeting expectations," suggesting the restructuring is also being used to trim underperforming staff.
- 6. Executive reduction: Intuit is reducing the number of executives (director and above) by approximately 10% to increase decision-making velocity.
- 7. Site consolidation: The company is closing offices in Edmonton and Boise, and consolidating technology roles to strategic sites like Atlanta, Bangalore, New York, Tel Aviv, and Toronto.
- 8. AI-driven products: Intuit is incorporating AI across its product line, including TurboTax, to enhance customer experiences and improve efficiency.
- 9. Skill development: The company recognizes the need for AI skills and is likely focusing on developing these capabilities in its workforce.
- 10. Long-term growth: Despite the current layoffs, Intuit expects its overall headcount to grow in fiscal year 2025 and beyond, indicating a long-term expansion strategy centered around AI capabilities.
This approach reflects Intuit's belief that embracing AI is crucial for maintaining competitiveness and driving future growth in the financial technology sector.
Product Use of AI & ML
Intuit expects AI and machine learning to play a significant and transformative role across their product line. Here's an expanded view of how they envision AI and ML impacting their offerings:
1. AI-powered financial assistant: Intuit is heavily investing in "Intuit Assist," their generative AI-powered financial assistant. This tool is designed to provide AI-generated financial recommendations and personalized assistance across their product suite.
2. TurboTax enhancements:
- AI is being integrated into TurboTax to streamline the tax preparation process.
- GenAI innovations are being rolled out across TurboTax Online and TurboTax Live products.
- AI will assist in matching customers to appropriate tax experts.
- The system will use AI for document uploading, data sharing, and improving overall efficiency.
- AI will support tax experts in explaining outcomes to customers and performing additional accuracy checks.
3. Personalized experiences: AI and ML are expected to deliver more compelling and personalized customer experiences across Intuit's products.
4. Increased monetization: Intuit believes AI will help increase monetization potential of their services.
5. Operational efficiency: AI is expected to drive efficiencies in how work gets done within Intuit.
6. Language support: GenAI and Large Language Models (LLMs) are being used to provide on-the-fly Spanish translations across multiple TurboTax products, expanding accessibility.
7. Accuracy and completeness checks: AI will be used to perform real-time accuracy checks during the tax filing process, helping to identify missed information or mistakes.
8. Explanations and insights: AI, particularly Large Language Models, will be used to provide thorough and contextual explanations of tax outcomes, offering detailed breakdowns and meaningful insights.
9. QuickBooks and Mailchimp integration: While not explicitly detailed, it's likely that AI and ML will be integrated into these products to enhance their capabilities and user experience.
10. Data utilization: Intuit plans to leverage its vast amounts of financial data more effectively using AI and ML to provide better services and insights to customers.
11. Expert platform enhancement: AI is expected to augment Intuit's human expert network, improving the matching of customers to appropriate experts and enhancing the overall service quality.
12. Small business solutions: AI and ML are likely to play a role in Intuit's offerings for small and mid-market businesses, potentially in areas like financial forecasting, cash flow management, and business insights.
Overall, Intuit sees AI and ML as central to their future product strategy, aiming to use these technologies to revolutionize their offerings, improve customer experiences, increase efficiency, and maintain their competitive edge in the financial technology sector.
AI LLM Risks in Tax and Accounting
There are risks using Large Language Models (LLMs) in tax software, given their tendency to confabulate or generate erroneous answers. This is indeed a critical concern, especially in a domain like tax preparation where accuracy is paramount. There's no explicit mention of Intuit directly addressing this specific issue. However, we can infer a few things about their approach:
1. Domain expertise integration: Intuit mentions combining their decades of tax expertise with AI. This suggests they're not relying solely on general-purpose LLMs, but integrating their proprietary tax knowledge.
2. Proprietary tax knowledge engine: The document mentions that Intuit Assist uses "the TurboTax proprietary tax knowledge engine" along with LLMs. This implies they're using a specialized system tailored for tax calculations, which could help mitigate general LLM errors.
3. Human oversight: Intuit is maintaining a network of human tax experts. This suggests a human-in-the-loop approach, where AI suggestions might be verified by experts, especially for complex cases.
4. Accuracy checks: The system is described as performing "real-time accuracy checks," which could potentially catch some AI-generated errors.
5. Current tax code integration: They mention using "current tax code" in their AI system, which suggests they're anchoring the AI to factual, up-to-date tax information.
6. Expert training: The document mentions LLMs "trained extensively by our tax experts," indicating some level of domain-specific fine-tuning.
However this is a significant risk area that requires careful consideration. The document doesn't provide specific details on:
- - How they validate AI-generated tax advice or calculations
- - What safeguards are in place to prevent or catch AI hallucinations
- - How they handle edge cases or complex tax situations that might confuse an AI
- - Their testing and quality assurance processes for AI-generated content
- - Legal and ethical considerations around AI-generated tax advice
Given the high-stakes nature of tax preparation, these are crucial questions that Intuit would need to address to ensure the reliability and safety of their AI-enhanced products. It would be important for Intuit to be transparent about these processes and perhaps have third-party audits to verify the accuracy and reliability of their AI systems in tax applications.
A Risky Strategy
Given the scarcity of AI and ML talent, it does seem potentially risky and counterintuitive for Intuit to lay off existing employees rather than retrain them. Let's analyze this situation:
- 1. Talent scarcity: AI and ML professionals are in high demand and short supply. This makes the decision to lay off potentially retrainable employees puzzling from a talent management perspective.
- 2. Institutional knowledge: Existing employees possess valuable institutional knowledge about Intuit's products, processes, and culture. This knowledge could be highly beneficial when combined with new AI/ML skills.
- 3. Cost considerations: Retraining existing employees might be more cost-effective than hiring and onboarding new staff, especially considering the competitive salaries demanded by AI/ML specialists.
- 4. Time efficiency: Retraining could potentially be faster than the process of recruiting, hiring, and integrating new employees.
- 5. Employee morale: Offering retraining opportunities could boost morale and loyalty among the workforce, whereas layoffs might negatively impact company culture.
- 6. Adaptability: Employees who have already demonstrated their ability to learn and adapt to Intuit's environment might be well-suited to learning new AI/ML skills.
However, Intuit's approach suggests they might be prioritizing other factors:
- 1. Fresh perspectives: They may believe new hires will bring fresh ideas and cutting-edge skills directly from the AI/ML field.
- 2. Specific expertise: The company might be seeking very specialized AI/ML skills that they believe are easier to acquire through new hires rather than retraining.
- 3. Performance issues: The mention of laying off employees "not meeting expectations" suggests performance might be a factor in their decision-making.
- 4. Rapid transformation: Intuit might feel that retraining would take too long given their desire for rapid AI adoption.
- 5. Structural reorganization: The layoffs and new hires might be part of a larger structural reorganization that goes beyond just adding AI/ML skills.
From a strategic human resource management perspective, retraining existing employees could indeed be a more sustainable and less risky approach, especially given the scarcity of AI/ML talent. It could help Intuit maintain valuable institutional knowledge while still acquiring the new skills they need.
This situation highlights the complex challenges companies face when trying to rapidly pivot towards new technologies like AI. It also underscores the importance of continuous learning and adaptability in the modern workforce, as well as the potential value of companies investing in their existing talent pool rather than always looking externally for new skills.
PDs for New Hires
Given Intuit's focus on integrating AI, ML, and LLMs into their product lineup, here are some key positions they might be looking to fill:
1. Senior AI/ML Engineer
- Responsibilities:
* Design and implement AI and ML models for financial applications
* Optimize existing AI systems for performance and accuracy
* Collaborate with product teams to integrate AI solutions
- Requirements:
* Advanced degree in Computer Science, AI, or related field
* 5+ years experience in AI/ML development
* Expertise in Python, TensorFlow, PyTorch
* Strong background in natural language processing and financial domain knowledge
2. LLM Specialist
- Responsibilities:
* Fine-tune and adapt large language models for financial and tax applications
* Develop safeguards against hallucinations and inaccuracies in LLM outputs
* Create prompt engineering strategies for optimal LLM performance
- Requirements:
* PhD in NLP, Computational Linguistics, or related field
* Experience with GPT models and other LLMs
* Strong understanding of the limitations and ethical considerations of LLMs
3. AI Product Manager
- Responsibilities:
* Define AI product vision and strategy for Intuit's financial tools
* Collaborate with engineering and design teams to implement AI features
* Analyze user data to identify opportunities for AI-driven improvements
- Requirements:
* MBA or equivalent experience
* 5+ years in product management, preferably in fintech
* Strong understanding of AI/ML capabilities and limitations
* Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills
4. Data Scientist - Tax Domain
- Responsibilities:
* Develop predictive models for tax-related applications
* Analyze large datasets to derive insights for product improvements
* Collaborate with tax experts to ensure AI model accuracy
- Requirements:
* Advanced degree in Data Science, Statistics, or related field
* 3+ years experience in data science, preferably in finance or tax
* Strong programming skills in Python and R
* Knowledge of tax regulations and financial systems
5. AI Ethics and Governance Specialist
- Responsibilities:
* Develop and implement ethical guidelines for AI use in financial products
* Ensure compliance with regulations regarding AI in finance
* Collaborate with legal and product teams to address potential AI risks
- Requirements:
* Advanced degree in Ethics, Law, or related field with focus on AI
* Understanding of financial regulations and AI technologies
* Experience in policy development and implementation
6. Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) Engineer
- Responsibilities:
* Design and implement infrastructure for deploying AI models at scale
* Optimize AI model performance and reliability in production environments
* Develop monitoring and maintenance protocols for AI systems
- Requirements:
* Degree in Computer Science or related field
* 3+ years experience in DevOps or MLOps
* Expertise in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and containerization technologies
* Strong programming skills in Python and experience with ML frameworks
7. AI User Experience (UX) Designer
- Responsibilities:
* Design intuitive interfaces for AI-powered features in financial products
* Conduct user research to understand how customers interact with AI
* Collaborate with engineering to implement AI-driven UX improvements
- Requirements:
* Degree in Design, HCI, or related field
* 5+ years experience in UX design, preferably with AI products
* Strong portfolio demonstrating AI/ML interface design
* Understanding of financial product user needs
These positions would help Intuit build a strong team capable of developing, implementing, and managing AI and ML technologies across their product line, while also ensuring ethical use and optimal user experience.
An Alternative Approach to Staffing and Product Development
There are potential benefits of retraining existing staff rather than pursuing layoffs and new hires. Let's explore a possible training program and the associated tradeoffs:
Potential Training Program:
1. AI/ML Foundations Course (3-4 months)
- Basic concepts of AI and ML
- Python programming for data science
- Introduction to popular ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch)
- Statistics and probability for ML
2. Specialization Tracks (3-4 months)
- Machine Learning Engineering
- Natural Language Processing and LLMs
- Data Science for Finance
- AI Product Management
- AI Ethics and Governance
- MLOps
3. Applied Projects (2-3 months)
- Hands-on projects using Intuit's data and systems
- Mentorship from AI experts within the company
4. Continuous Learning Program
- Regular workshops on new AI developments
- Access to online learning platforms for ongoing skill development
Tradeoffs:
Advantages of Retraining:
1. Retention of institutional knowledge: Existing employees understand Intuit's systems, culture, and domain-specific challenges.
2. Cost-effectiveness: Training existing employees could be cheaper than hiring and onboarding new staff, especially considering the high salaries demanded by AI specialists.
3. Loyalty and morale: Offering retraining opportunities could boost employee morale and loyalty, potentially improving retention.
4. Customized skill development: Training can be tailored to Intuit's specific needs and systems.
5. Faster time-to-productivity: Retrained employees might become productive in their new roles faster than new hires due to their existing company knowledge.
6. Diversity in AI: This approach could help create a more diverse AI team by giving opportunities to a wider range of existing employees.
Challenges and Potential Drawbacks:
1. Training effectiveness: Not all employees may successfully transition to AI roles, potentially leading to reduced productivity during the training period.
2. Time investment: Developing and implementing a comprehensive training program takes time, potentially slowing down Intuit's AI initiatives in the short term.
3. Resistance to change: Some employees might resist the shift to new roles and technologies.
4. Lack of fresh perspectives: Retraining existing staff might limit the influx of new ideas and cutting-edge practices that external hires could bring.
5. Potential skill gaps: There might be advanced or specialized AI skills that are difficult to develop through a retraining program alone.
6. Opportunity cost: Resources devoted to retraining could potentially be used elsewhere in the company.
7. Cultural shift: Transitioning to an AI-focused company culture might be more challenging with existing employees than with new hires already immersed in AI.
Compromise Approach:
A balanced strategy could involve:
- 1. Offering the retraining program to a subset of existing employees (perhaps 800-1000 out of the 1200).
- 2. Proceeding with some layoffs for those unable or unwilling to retrain (perhaps 200-400).
- 3. Hiring a smaller number of AI experts externally (perhaps 200-400) to bring in fresh perspectives and advanced skills.
This approach could help Intuit balance the benefits of retaining institutional knowledge and boosting morale with the need for fresh expertise and rapid AI adoption. It would also allow for a more gradual transition, potentially reducing disruption to ongoing operations.
Ultimately, the best approach depends on factors like Intuit's timeline for AI adoption, budget constraints, current skill levels of existing employees, and the specific AI capabilities they're aiming to develop. A careful assessment of these factors would be crucial in determining the most effective strategy.
Tax products company Intuit laying off 10% of workforce, including over 200 employees in San Diego
Photo by: Gene J. Puskar/AP
SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Intuit -- the company known for its tax and financial products QuickBooks, TurboTax, Mailchimp, and Credit Karma -- announced Wednesday it was laying off 10 percent of its workforce, including over 200 employees at the company’s San Diego office.
In a message to employees, CEO Sasan Goodarzi said about 1,800 employees would be laid off as part of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company’s AI-focused reorganization plan.
Intuit officials told ABC 10News that 215 employees in San Diego would be let go.
Additionally, Goodarzi announced plans to close its offices in Boise, Idaho, and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; more than 250 employees from those offices will either relocate to other Intuit locations or leave the company.
“We are also eliminating more than 300 roles across the company to streamline work and reallocate resources toward key growth areas,” said Goodarzi.
The CEO added that about 1,050 of the layoffs were workers “who are not meeting expectations and who we believe will be more successful outside of Intuit.”
"We do not do layoffs to cut costs, and that remains true in this case. The changes we are making today enable us to allocate additional investments to our most critical areas to support our customers and drive growth ...," Goodarzi said.
Despite the layoffs, Goodarzi said the company would hire 1,800 new employees in Fiscal Year 2025 to coincide with Intuit’s shift into AI-driven products and services.
Retraining workers for the AI world
Last month, JPMorgan Chase announced that all its new hires would receive training in the use of artificial intelligence — promising that such a move would help staff to eliminate repetitive “no joy work” and boost productivity and revenues.
“This year, everyone coming in here will have prompt engineering training to get them ready for the AI of the future,” said Mary Erdoes, chief executive of the US bank’s Asset and Wealth Management business.
She was referring to the process of writing the most effective text ‘prompts’, which are required to generate the desired response from an AI application. And Erdoes is not the only business leader to see this need. Prompt engineering is emerging as one of the in-demand skills in workplaces where AI is taking over and automating tasks, or acting as an aid to workers — for example, through chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
In governments, globally, productivity improvements from generative AI could be worth $1.75tn annually by 2033, according to Marc Warner, co-founder and chief executive of Faculty, a London-based company providing AI software, consulting and services.
But reaping these benefits will require careful investment in retraining for an AI world.
“It’s not AI that will replace humans, it’s humans who can work with it [who] will replace [those] who can’t,” says Khariton Matveev, a tech entrepreneur. His advice is: “View AI as a co-worker, don’t avoid it, but look more for cases of implementation in your field.”
According to one study, nearly a fifth of US workers could have at least 50 per cent of their tasks affected by the introduction of large language models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4. Matveev believes this AI adoption will be more about “partially replacing some job elements than entirely replacing professions”. He suggests that information-processing jobs — such as translator, researcher, or designer — are at higher risk than professions requiring physical strength.
In preparation for the new technology, he recommends that workers complete a course in prompt engineering, and try to experiment with AI tools by integrating them into their daily lives.
Christian Rebernik, co-chief executive and co-founder of Tomorrow University of Applied Sciences, says there is a more “urgent need” to retrain for AI in certain sectors than in others. Sectors where the need is great include healthcare, climate change mitigation, and cyber security — as cybercriminals are increasingly using AI to carry out sophisticated attacks.
There are also AI-specific roles that will become increasingly important as the technology is more deeply embedded in our everyday lives, such as data-labeller or annotator — people who can help to train AI algorithms by, for example, clarifying what a particular image depicts.
“The rise of Generative AI brings a number of opportunities for retraining — mapping to the AI pipeline that goes from data collection and labelling, to model creation and training, and finally application and feedback,” says Dev Nag, chief executive of QueryPal, an AI assistant for businesses. “Domain experts who can help at the beginning and end of this pipeline — [advising on] which data to collect, how to label it, and how to apply it — will continue to add enormous value.”
To those most at risk of having their roles replaced, but who remain tech savvy, Matveev says: “You can secure yourself, if you are a top-tier expert who can help teach AI in your field . . . [you can] earn from training models on data set created by you.”
But, with all these changes, the skills required to stay ahead go beyond the purely technical.
To be most effective as a prompt engineer in a particular sector, for example, will require deep knowledge of that sector. “Our experience so far suggests . . . that there is a strong correlation between subject matter expertise and the ability to create the best prompts,” explains James Longster, partner in the technology and commercial transactions department at UK law firm Travers Smith.
He cites the legal sector: if different staff members are given the task of using AI to extract information from a contract, the experienced lawyers will tend to outperform their non-legal counterparts in creating the prompts that extract the best results.
And all employees who work with clients will need to know how to wield AI in ways that retain their clients’ trust and confidence. Nag points to the enduring role of financial advisers who must “balance the risk versus reward judgment for individual investors, so that [AI] algorithms don’t push outside of the target risk envelope”.
Matveev agrees. “As AI takes on more “hard” components — like data, analysis, execution — the human role will shift to better understanding needs, what do clients really want and what should we do,” he says.
Others also mention the importance of interpersonal skills and ethics as AI is adopted in the workplace. “Skills such as emotional intelligence — recognising and regulating one’s emotions — and social intelligence — understanding and influencing the emotions of others in social situations — will ensure AI integration remains human-centred,” argues Rebernik.
Above all, staff will need to be “flexible and adaptable”, says Stanford University professor and AI specialist Erik Brynjolfsson — as some skills may quickly become redundant as the technology moves so fast.
“Prompt-engineering skills were hailed as the important new skill to learn,” he notes. “But they are already being eclipsed, as [large language models] learn to write better prompts than humans.”
Investing in our future - Intuit Blog
Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi sent the following note to Intuit employees today:
Hi team,
As I’ve shared many times, the era of AI is one of the most significant technology shifts of our lifetime. This is truly an extraordinary time – AI is igniting global innovation at an incredible pace, transforming every industry and company in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Companies that aren’t prepared to take advantage of this AI revolution will fall behind and, over time, will no longer exist.
Intuit is at a critical moment in our history. For over 40 years, we’ve had a successful track record of self-disruption and reinvention, transforming through multiple technological shifts. We were early to bet on and invest in AI, building one of the largest AI-driven expert platforms to fuel the success of consumers, small and mid-market businesses, and important partners like accountants, financial institutions, and marketing agencies who rely on us daily to prosper. With the introduction of GenAI, we are now delivering even more compelling customer experiences, increasing monetization potential, and driving efficiencies in how the work gets done within Intuit. But it’s just the beginning of the AI revolution.
Intuit is in a position of strength; we have the strategy and momentum that we need to succeed. To fulfill our mission to power the prosperity of our customers around the world and strengthen our leadership position, we must accelerate our innovation and investments in the areas that are most important to our future success. With this context, I am sharing some very difficult decisions my leadership team and I have made to ensure we are able to increase investment in these key growth areas. Today we will be communicating to approximately 1,800 employees, which is 10% of our workforce, that they will be leaving Intuit. These are extremely painful decisions for me and my team because we deeply understand the impact these decisions have on our friends and colleagues who will be leaving. We are very grateful for the great work they have done and the amazing contributions they have made while at Intuit.
We do not do layoffs to cut costs, and that remains true in this case. The changes we are making today enable us to allocate additional investments to our most critical areas to support our customers and drive growth as detailed below. This includes reinvesting in the necessary skills and capabilities to support these areas, and, as such, we will hire approximately 1,800 new people primarily in engineering, product, and customer facing roles such as sales, customer success, and marketing. In context of the actions we are taking today, we expect our overall headcount to grow in FY25 and beyond.
Accelerating investments in the areas that matter most
We will accelerate our investments and hiring in the following areas to support growth, aligned to our company strategy and Big Bets:
- Revolutionize Speed to Benefit (Big Bet 1): Our GenAI-powered financial assistant, Intuit Assist, coupled with our network of experts, allows us to deliver delightful “done-for-you” experiences with a gateway to human expertise. To deliver these capabilities, we will accelerate investing in data and AI, leveraging GenOS to reimagine our products from traditional workflows to AI-native experiences that eliminate work, save time, and put more money in our customers’ pockets. We are accelerating our hiring of top engineering talent across the technology ecosystem to support these investments.
- Connecting People to Experts (Big Bet 2): Our AI-driven expert platform is a game-changer for Intuit. No other company can deliver a digital platform with embedded AI-powered human expertise at our scale to serve the financial needs of consumers, small and mid-market businesses, and partners. We are increasing investments in data and AI to more effectively leverage accurate and complete data to do the work for our customers and match customers to the “right” experts in real-time to provide the specific, personalized assistance to fuel their success. To advance this area, we are hiring additional talent to bolster our expert network teams that are augmented by AI to assist our customers and we are investing in hiring marketing talent with deep expertise in digital services.
- Accelerating Money Solutions: We’ve successfully built a fintech platform that enables our customers to manage their money end-to-end and to improve cash flow. This is an important driver to improving the success rate of our small and mid-market customers. We are accelerating our investment to deliver best-in-class, seamless payments, capital, banking, bill pay, and invoicing solutions across several geographies. We are hiring additional experienced fintech talent in engineering, design, risk, and customer success.
- Disrupting the Mid-Market (Big Bet 5): We continue to have a massive opportunity to fuel mid-market customers’ success with our offerings, building a significant growth engine for Intuit. Our vision is to be an AI-driven expert platform for mid-market customers, delivering industry-specific experiences to fuel their success as the complexity of their business grows. We are accelerating investments to serve these customers on our platform, such as more sophisticated accounting and reporting capabilities, money solutions, human capital management, and customer acquisition solutions with Mailchimp, all assisted by AI-powered human experts. To achieve this goal, we are accelerating hiring talent with deep mid-market customer experience in product, account management, marketing, sales, and customer success.
- Accelerating International Growth: International
continues to be a significant opportunity for us. Bringing QuickBooks
and Mailchimp together to create one growth platform around the world,
where we have product market fit, including in Canada, UK, and
Australia, is important to driving our success. We are investing in
expanding our AI-driven expert platform in these markets and leveraging
Mailchimp’s international footprint to lead our expansion in Europe and
“rest of world.” This investment will enable us to offer a greater set
of our ecosystem of services to customers in international markets, and
we remain committed to our international hubs in London, Toronto, and
Sydney. We are hiring talent with international experience, including in
product, engineering, and go-to-market skills to accelerate our
progress in this area.
Taking care of our people
It is never easy to say goodbye to our colleagues and friends and we are committed to treating everyone who has been impacted by these changes with the compassion and respect they deserve.
Let me first start with who is impacted by these decisions:
- We’ve significantly raised the bar on our expectations of employee performance, resulting in approximately 1,050 employees leaving the company who are not meeting expectations and who we believe will be more successful outside of Intuit.
- To continue increasing our velocity of decision making and empowering our employees to deliver for our customers, we are reducing the number of executives (director and above) by approximately 10%, expanding certain executive roles and responsibilities.
- We are also consolidating 80 technology roles to sites where we are strategically growing our technology teams and capabilities, including Atlanta, Bangalore, New York, Tel Aviv, and Toronto, aligned to Intuit’s site strategy. This strategy allows us to better align these resources with the product and technology teams that are accountable for end-to-end ownership of discrete technology capabilities and critical customer problems. Related to this strategy, we have made the decision to close two of our sites in Edmonton and Boise, where we have over 250 employees, with a certain number of employees relocating to other sites within Intuit or leaving the company.
- We are also eliminating more than 300 roles across the company to streamline work and reallocate resources toward key growth areas.
To support everyone leaving, we are providing generous support, including:
- Financial: All US employees will receive a package that includes a minimum of 16 weeks of pay, plus two additional weeks for every year of service. All employees in the US will have 60 days before they leave the company with a last day of September 9, 2024. Employees outside the US will receive similar support, taking into account local requirements. This timing allows everyone leaving to reach their July vesting date for restricted stock units (RSUs) and the July 31 eligibility date for annual IPI bonuses. Those not on an IPI plan will be able to reach the eligibility date for July or Q4 incentives.
- Health care: We will provide at least six months of health insurance coverage. Everyone leaving will also have access to the Employee Assistance Program to help with mental health support during the transition period.
- Career: Each impacted employee will have access to career transition and job placement services. Services include resume development, interviewing techniques, and recruiting and job search help.
- Immigration: For those that need immigration support, the extended transition period will allow individuals on visas extra time to look for other roles. Intuit will also provide access to external immigration experts for advice and support at no cost.
Moving forward together
By 9:00 AM PT today,
all employees impacted by these changes will receive a calendar
invitation from their manager titled “Leaving Intuit Discussion”. Those
who do not receive an Outlook invitation by 9:00 AM PT can assume they
are not impacted and we ask that you support your colleagues as they
process this news.
Today is an incredibly difficult day and our hearts go out to all of you who are leaving Intuit. We sincerely thank you for all you have done for the company. We know you will continue to make a significant impact and achieve great success in your next chapter.
With the strength of our people, culture, and mission, we are positioned to take advantage of this AI revolution and revolutionize our customers’ experiences to deliver undisputed benefits in ways that we could never imagine. Today is “Day 1”. Together, we will focus on the future and all the possibilities to power prosperity around the world.
I will be hosting a Town Hall on Tuesday, July 16 at 9:00 AM PT to answer your questions. Please take good care of yourself and each other.
Sasan
Intuit’s AI gamble: Mass layoff of 1,800 paired with hiring spree | Ars Technica
In the name of AI —
Intuit CEO: "Companies that aren’t prepared to take advantage of [AI] will fall behind."
On Wednesday, Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi announced in a letter to the company that it would be laying off 1,800 employees—about 10 percent of its workforce of around 18,000—while simultaneously planning to hire the same number of new workers as part of a major restructuring effort purportedly focused on AI.
"As I’ve shared many times, the era of AI is one of the most significant technology shifts of our lifetime," wrote Goodarzi in a blog post on Intuit's website. "This is truly an extraordinary time—AI is igniting global innovation at an incredible pace, transforming every industry and company in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Companies that aren’t prepared to take advantage of this AI revolution will fall behind and, over time, will no longer exist."
The CEO says Intuit is in a position of strength and that the layoffs are not cost-cutting related, but they allow the company to "allocate additional investments to our most critical areas to support our customers and drive growth." With new hires, the company expects its overall headcount to grow in its 2025 fiscal year.
Intuit's layoffs (which collectively qualify as a "mass layoff" under the WARN act) hit various departments within the company, including closing Intuit's offices in Edmonton, Canada, and Boise, Idaho, affecting over 250 employees. Approximately 1,050 employees will receive layoffs because they're "not meeting expectations," according to Goodarzi's letter. Intuit has also eliminated more than 300 roles across the company to "streamline" operations and shift resources toward AI, and the company plans to consolidate 80 tech roles to "sites where we are strategically growing our technology teams and capabilities," such as Atlanta, Bangalore, New York, Tel Aviv, and Toronto.
In turn, the company plans to accelerate investments in its AI-powered financial assistant, Intuit Assist, which provides AI-generated financial recommendations. The company also plans to hire new talent in engineering, product development, data science, and customer-facing roles, with a particular emphasis on AI expertise.
Not just about AI
Despite Goodarzi's heavily AI-focused message, the restructuring at Intuit reveals a more complex picture. A closer look at the layoffs shows that many of the 1,800 job cuts stem from performance-based departures (such as the aforementioned 1,050). The restructuring also includes a 10 percent reduction in executive positions at the director level and above ("To continue increasing our velocity of decision making," Goodarzi says).
These numbers suggest that the reorganization may also serve as an opportunity for Intuit to trim its workforce of underperforming staff, using the AI hype cycle as a compelling backdrop for a broader house-cleaning effort.
But as far as CEOs are concerned, it's always a good time to talk about how they're embracing the latest, hottest thing in technology: "With the introduction of GenAI," Goodarzi wrote, "we are now delivering even more compelling customer experiences, increasing monetization potential, and driving efficiencies in how the work gets done within Intuit. But it’s just the beginning of the AI revolution."
Intuit TurboTax Adds New Full Service and Generative AI-Powered Tax Prep Experiences for Tax Filing with Ease and Complete Confidence
Press Releases
November 27, 2023
Expanded experiences for small businesses and Spanish language filers means all taxpayers and small businesses with any tax situation can file their taxes in their preferred method
Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU), the global financial technology platform that makes Intuit TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, announced today the latest evolution of its TurboTax Live Full Service offering will launch on November 30, 2023. TurboTax Live Full Service will match customers to a virtual tax expert or to a local Intuit TurboTax Verified Pro for virtual or in-person tax preparation. The company will also unveil on that date new generative AI (GenAI)-powered innovations rolling out across its TurboTax Online and TurboTax Live products and services, including Spanish language translations across the full product line-up, increasing the ease of tax preparation so every taxpayer or small business can file their taxes how they want with complete confidence.
"Our decades of tax expertise, network of tax pros, and Intuit’s GenAI enable us to serve all taxpayers and small businesses regardless of their tax situation and whether they want to do their taxes themselves, with help along the way or hand them off," said Executive Vice President and General Manager of Intuit's Consumer Group, Mark Notarainni. "Now, all tax filers, including those seeking an in-person connection with a local independent tax expert, Spanish-speaking filers, and small business owners will have a TurboTax experience that gives them confidence that their taxes are done right and they are getting their biggest refund guaranteed."
TAX FILING SOLUTIONS NO MATTER YOUR COMPLEXITY OR HOW YOU’D LIKE TO FILE
TurboTax is delivering a suite of full service, assisted and DIY tax preparation offerings for individuals, families and small businesses. Enabled through Intuit’s generative AI-powered innovations paired with the company’s virtual expert platform, filers can choose to file their taxes themself, with assistance along the way or fully hand off their taxes for a virtual or in-person tax preparation experience and receive the same maximum refund and accuracy guarantee.
TurboTax Live Full Service Offerings
Filers can hand off their taxes from start to finish with TurboTax Live Full Service. Customers will be matched to a tax expert with experience in their unique situation, who will do their taxes for them via one-way video on the same day. Tax filers who used TurboTax Full Service last tax season can also choose to work with the same tax expert this season. New GenAI-powered, Intuit Assist, and Intuit’s AI innovations will make everything from tax expert-matching, document uploading, and data sharing easier, quicker and more streamlined for the customer. It will also arm the tax expert with the power of AI to guide their tax outcome explanations to the customer, provide additional accuracy checks, and other added support.
New for tax year 2023, TurboTax Live Full Service will offer filers who prefer an in-person tax preparation experience the option to meet and build a relationship with a local Intuit TurboTax Verified Pro. Available in most states, customers can visit the TurboTax website and choose an independent Intuit TurboTax Verified Pro in their area, then securely share their tax documents and work with the tax expert either virtually or in-person. Utilizing Intuit’s powerful platform software, AI-powered innovations, and customer support, Intuit TurboTax Verified Pros will offer tax filers the same max refund and accuracy guarantees TurboTax provides through all of its products. In addition to providing TurboTax filers with this new in-person tax preparation experience, Intuit TurboTax Verified Pros now have an opportunity to grow and run their own business with the support of TurboTax, from marketing and customer acquisition to back office and front office capabilities.
TurboTax Live Business Offerings
After a successful launch in tax year 2022, TurboTax Live Business is back. Also launching November 30, 2023, business entities that are partnerships (1065), S-Corps (1120-S) and multi-member LLCs will be matched with tax experts experienced in their tax situation. Small business owners can fully hand their taxes off to a specialized tax expert experienced in the complexities of small business taxes through TurboTax Live Full Service Business, or, in select states, choose unlimited virtual expert help as they file through TurboTax Live Assisted Business. Experts will help optimize business tax savings and provide year-round guidance.
DIY & Virtual Assisted Offerings
On November 30, TurboTax will also launch TurboTax Online and TurboTax Live Assisted products for tax year 2023. Tax filers, regardless of their complexity, will get even smarter, more streamlined tax preparation across all product offerings with the power of GenAI, whether they want to do their taxes themselves, have an experienced tax expert help them along the way, or completely hand their taxes off.
PUTTING THE POWER OF GENAI & TURBOTAX TECH INNOVATIONS IN CUSTOMER HANDS WITH INTUIT ASSIST
From DIY to Full Service experiences, TurboTax customers will start to experience the streamlined, confidence boosting benefits of Intuit’s new generative AI-powered financial assistant, Intuit Assist. Intuit Assist is the only AI-powered financial assistant that uses the combination of decades of domain expertise, rich data, current tax code, Large Language Models, and the TurboTax proprietary tax knowledge engine to provide a streamlined experience and give customers complete confidence in an accurate tax outcome. Within TurboTax products, Intuit Assist combines powerful and relevant contextual tax data sets, with the power of Intuit’s AI-driven expert platform and the accelerated investment the company has made in GenAI to deliver game-changing new experiences:
- Personalized Financial Assistant: Regardless of which TurboTax product you choose, from DIY to Live Assisted to Full Service, TurboTax is setting out to make sure customers don’t feel alone during or after their tax filing experience. Whether they choose to get started by uploading their tax data and documents, connecting with one of our experts, or answering some questions about their tax situation, Intuit’s AI-powered document checklist will help customize the experience to only what’s relevant for the customer. It will enable TurboTax and human tax experts to leverage the power of AI to provide fast, personalized answers to their questions, offer tailored insights for their situation, and even deliver recommendations on how to best take action in the future. For instance, when a filer uploads their W-2, TurboTax will proactively identify other likely situations for the customer to review, such as confirming another likely source of income, or a common credit for tax filers like them. TurboTax then surfaces these to the customer so nothing is missed. If the same filer chooses to have a tax expert do their taxes instead, the tax expert is supported with Intuit Assist’s data-backed guidance.
- Real-Time Accuracy Checks: As a customer goes through the DIY and Virtual Assisted filing process, Intuit Assist will check for accuracy and completeness along the way. For instance, Intuit Assist will surface missed information, and customers will get guidance for resolving the mistake while they work. This innovation cuts down on document reviews and filer mistakes, addressing them while the customer is entering their information.
- Deep Explanations: Thorough and contextual explanations give customers confidence in their tax outcome by offering a detailed breakdown of their comparative numbers from last year and this year. To enable this, we are using a Large Language Model (LLM) trained extensively by our tax experts to understand the nuances of a customer’s tax situation and offer meaningful insights for the individual. If customers are stuck in their return or choose to fully hand their taxes over, we will guide them to a human tax expert who can provide fast answers, personalized insights, and recommendations for their specific situation.
- Spanish language experience: Spanish speaking filers who have been searching for and prefer to have a comprehensive Spanish language filing experience will be able to choose to have the TurboTax Online and Live Assisted product, as well as the onboarding experience for Full Service experiences translated to Spanish across all states. Using Intuit’s GenAI and LLMs, multiple TurboTax products now offer on-the-fly Spanish translations, including on mobile and desktop. Spanish filers will be able to engage across the tax filing experience in Spanish, including help content and explanations to better understand specific topics.
All TurboTax Live and TurboTax Online products will be available on November 30, 2023, in English and Spanish at www.TurboTax.com, the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. See product pricing for product forms availability.
ABOUT INTUIT
Intuit is the global financial technology platform that powers prosperity for the people and communities we serve. With 100 million customers worldwide using TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to prosper. We never stop working to find new, innovative ways to make that possible. Please visit us at Intuit.com and find us on social for the latest information about Intuit and our products and services.
Source: TurboTax
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