Intuit began its AI journey in 2019 when Sasan Goodarzi became CEO. A few months into the job, he said his biggest challenge was transforming Intuit from a cloud-based parent company of TurboTax and QuickBooks to an artificial intelligence company.
To deliver AI capabilities to both Intuit employees and customers, Intuit relied on the expertise of executives like Chief AI Officer Ashok Srivastava and Chief Technology Officer Alex Balazs, hired in 2017 and 1999, respectively. In 2009, Intuit also hired Mark Notarainni, executive vice president and general manager of Intuit’s consumer group. He spoke to Business Insider for this article. An Intuit spokesperson said all three executives were part of a small group of senior leaders who collaborated to develop a vision and strategy for leveraging AI to make tax filing less stressful.
At the heart of Intuit’s AI efforts is a trove of data collected from 100 million business and consumer customers and a proprietary generative AI operating system used to build and run AI-based apps. Intuit did not disclose the amount of its AI investments, but the company said its investments resulted in nearly $90 million in annual efficiency gains in the first half of 2025.
Ahead of this tax season, TurboTax is expanding on a concept it tested last year: a return to the physical world. The company will open approximately 600 offices and 20 TurboTax-branded stores by 2026, blending the power of AI and machine learning with human expertise.
Rewind 10 years and you’ll see how the seeds of this movement were first planted.
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In January 2016, TurboTax introduced SmartLook. This allows users to receive virtual assistance from qualified tax professionals. Revenue for that service, which has evolved over the past decade and is now called TurboTax Live, is still increasing, with revenue increasing 51% year-over-year in the fiscal first quarter ended October 31, 2025, according to the earnings report.
Many of Intuit’s leaders have long tenures, with Balazs, Goodarzi, Notarainni and Srivastava spending nearly 67 years together at the business software giant. During that time, the company has led major product launches, including its Virtual Expert Platform, which debuted in November 2022. Use AI to understand financial and tax documents and answer customer questions. When human advice is needed, the platform matches users with tax experts.
In November 2024, the company launched a generative AI-powered financial assistant called Intuit Assist. It can read tax documents uploaded to QuickBooks and display an automated checklist sidebar that reminds customers of additional forms they need. Intuit, which processes $105 billion in tax refunds annually on its platform, said this approach automates 93% of forms.
While nearly all Americans file electronically, the increased use of TurboTax Live by customers, increasing by 17% in 2024 and 47% in 2025, has led Intuit to consider a greater emphasis on human-driven tax services. Notaraini said the company is now making an even bigger bet on brick-and-mortar stores.
During the spring 2025 tax season, TurboTax piloted 200 specialty offices in major metropolitan areas across the country and 20 temporary locations in Southern California.
“What we learned in 2025 is that the majority of our customers wanted in-person meetings,” Notaraini said, adding that for some customers, in-person meetings are necessary to establish trust. He cited internal research showing that customers who seek help online are five times more likely to schedule an appointment with a tax professional within a 50-mile radius than those who don’t have access to a local tax professional.
Just as Apple wasn’t keen to copy Best Buy when opening its own retail stores, TurboTax wasn’t keen on copying rival H&R Block, which has a massive retail footprint of about 12,000 stores around the world. “They’ve reimagined the whole retail experience,” Notaraini said of the iPhone maker. “We wanted to do it for taxes and personal finance.”
Srivastava was named chief AI officer at Intuit in July after the launch of the 2025 storefront pilot.
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TurboTax recently opened a flagship store in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. There are currently 20 TurboTax stores, with more planned in major cities such as Chicago, Dallas, and Phoenix.
At these locations, tax professionals’ digital work is all done on smartphones and tablets, Notaraini said, and you won’t see a computer on a single desk. “It’s very warm and cozy,” he told Business Insider. “Let our experts focus on you, the customer, not looking at a screen.”
Tax preparers can come into the store with a form they created at home, submit it to a tax professional and then stay in the store to complete the return, or leave and track the professional’s progress through a mobile app. An Intuit spokesperson told Business Insider that the company will open more professional offices and TurboTax stores during the current tax season, which runs through April 15.
In addition to streamlining large-scale processes and empowering resources for new strategic investments, Intuit’s AI investments have transformed the workflows of tax professionals like Geanna Foreman.
Before using AI, Foreman said he would quickly jot down notes during calls with clients. She said during busy tax season, the foreman’s work piles up, with customer calls coming in almost daily.
She now uses AI-powered note-taking and post-call summarization tools. “I had to make a lot of changes to my notes, and now I just look at my notes, and I probably just made one or two changes and it looks better,” Foreman said.
