Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Intuit \u2014 the financial software giant behind products like TurboTax and QuickBooks \u2014 is making significant strides using generative AI to enhance its offerings for small business customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a tech landscape flooded with AI promises, Intuit has built an agent-based AI architecture that\u2019s delivering tangible business outcomes for small businesses. The company has deployed what it calls \u201cdone for you\u201d experiences that autonomously handle entire workflows and deliver quantifiable business impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Intuit has been building out its own AI layer, which it calls a generative AI operating system (GenOS). The company detailed some of the ways it is using gen AI to improve personalization at VB Transform 2024. In Sept. 2024, Intuit added agentic AI workflows, an effort that has improved operations for both the company and its users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to new Intuit data, QuickBooks Online customers are getting paid an average of five days faster, with overdue invoices 10% more likely to be paid in full. For small businesses where cash flow is king, these aren\u2019t just incremental improvements \u2014 they\u2019re potentially business-saving innovations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What separates Intuit\u2019s approach from competitors is its sophisticated data architecture designed specifically to enable agent-based AI experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The company has built what CDO Ashok Srivastava calls \u201ca trinity\u201d of data systems:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCDC provides a serving layer for AI experiences, then the data lake is kind of the repository for all such data,\u201d Srivastava told VentureBeat. \u201cThe agent is going to be interacting with data, and it has a set of data that it could look at in order to pull information.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Intuit\u00a0architecture diverges from the typical vector database approach many enterprises are hastily implementing. While vector databases and embeddings are important for powering AI models, Intuit recognizes that true semantic understanding requires a more holistic approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhere the key issue continues to be is essentially in ensuring that we have a good, logical and semantic understanding of the data,\u201d said Srivastava.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n To achieve this semantic understanding, Intuit is building out a semantic data layer on top of its core data infrastructure. The semantic data layer helps provide context and meaning around the data, beyond just the raw data itself or its vector representations. It allows Intuit\u2019s AI agents to better comprehend the relationships and connections between different data sources and elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By building this semantic data layer, Intuit is able to augment the capabilities of its vector-based systems with a deeper, more contextual understanding of data. This allows AI agents to make more informed and meaningful decisions for customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike enterprises implementing AI for basic workflow automation or customer service chatbots, Intuit has focused on creating fully agentic \u201cdone for you\u201d experiences. These are applications that handle complex, multi-step tasks while requiring only final human approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For QuickBooks users, the agentic system analyzes client payment history and invoice status to automatically draft personalized reminder messages, allowing business owners to simply review and approve before sending. The system\u2019s ability to personalize based on relationship context and payment patterns has directly contributed to measurably faster payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Intuit is applying identical agentic principles internally, developing autonomous procurement systems and HR assistants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u201cWe have the ability to have an internal agentic procurement process that employees can use to purchase supplies and book travel,\u201d Srivastava explained, demonstrating how the company is eating its own AI dog food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What potentially gives Intuit a competitive advantage over other enterprise AI implementations is how the system was designed with foresight about the emergence of advanced reasoning models like DeepSeek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe built gen runtime in anticipation of reasoning models coming up,\u201d Ashok revealed. \u201cWe\u2019re not behind the eight ball \u2026 we\u2019re ahead of it. We built the capabilities assuming that reasoning would exist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This forward-thinking design means Intuit can rapidly incorporate new reasoning capabilities into their agentic experiences as they emerge, without requiring architectural overhauls. According to Srivastava, Intuit\u2019s engineering teams are already using these capabilities to enable agents to reason across a large number of tools and data in ways that weren\u2019t previously possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps most significantly, Intuit\u2019s approach shows a clear focus on business outcomes rather than technological showmanship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of work and a lot of fanfare going on these days on AI itself, that it\u2019s going to revolutionize the world, and all of that, which I think is good,\u201d said Srivastava. \u201cBut I think what\u2019s a lot better is to show that it\u2019s actually helping real people do better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The company believes deeper reasoning capabilities will enable even more comprehensive \u201cdone for you\u201d experiences that cover more customer needs with greater depth. Each experience combines multiple atomic experiences or discrete operations that together create a complete workflow solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For enterprises looking to implement AI effectively, Intuit\u2019s approach offers several valuable lessons for enterprises:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As agentic AI continues to mature, enterprises that follow Intuit\u2019s example by focusing on complete solutions rather than isolated AI features may find themselves achieving similar concrete business results rather than simply generating tech buzz.<\/p>\n Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily<\/strong><\/p>\n If you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\tThanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n An error occured.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>The technical trinity: How Intuit\u2019s data architecture enables true agentic AI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Going beyond vector embeddings to power agentic AI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Beyond basic automation: How agentic AI completes entire business processes autonomously<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Designed for the reasoning model era<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Shifting from AI hype to business impact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What this means for enterprises adopting AI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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