How Intuit killed the chatbot crutch – and built an agentic AI playbook you can copy

In the frenzied land rush for generative AI that followed ChatGPT’s debut, the mandate from Intuit’s CEO was clear: ship the company’s largest, most shocking AI-driven launch by Sept. 2023.

Responding with blazing speed, the $200 billion company behind QuickBooks, TurboTax, and Mailchimp, delivered Intuit Assist. It was a classic first attempt: a chat-style assistant bolted onto the side of its applications, designed to prove Intuit was on the cutting edge.

It was supposed to be a game-changer. Instead, it flopped.

“When you take a beautiful, well-designed user interface and you simply plop human-like chat on the side, that doesn’t necessarily make it better,” Alex Balazs, Intuit’s Chief Technology Officer, told VentureBeat.

• Turning energy into a strategic advantage
• Architecting efficient inference for real throughput gains
• Unlocking competitive ROI with sustainable AI systems

The failed launch plunged the company into what ...