IBM Watson will work as a tax specialist



    IBM has long involved the IBM Watson cognitive system in solving practical issues. This includes diagnostics in medicine, jurisprudence, work as a meteorologist, cook, financier, plus much more. Now it is decided to give Watson another profession - a tax specialist.

    Watson helps H&R Block's tax specialists work more efficiently. Now this company has more than 10,000 branches. At the company's offices in this reporting period, about 11 million people are going to fill out their tax returns. The collaboration between H&R Block's and IBM was announced even during the broadcast of the Super Bowl matches.

    For IBM, working with H&R Block means expanding the reach of IBM Watson. Particularly important for the company is working with the corporate sector, which is now being implemented.

    According to experts, cognitive systems, in particular, Watson, by 2018 will be involved in 75% of corporate applications released by companies for both their customers and their own employees. In particular, David Shubmeh, an analyst at IDC, is confident that artificial intelligence has already become part of the infrastructure of corporate and consumer applications, and over time this trend will only intensify.

    Watson is learning new specialties very quickly. His main ability is the collection, analysis and classification of primary data with the identification of relationships between the individual elements of such data. In order for the cognitive system to be able to help with taxation, it was given to study about 74,000 pages of text with state tax laws, as well as thousands of pages of other documents related to finance and taxes.

    The next step is the training of IBM Watson by H&R Block specialists. They will ask the system questions and adjust the answers in the event that they are not entirely correct.


    IBM Watson has already tested its strength in 100 offices in January this year. At the next stage, the system will work in the retail network of H&R Block. One of the main tasks of Watson is to help the company's customers in the issue of tax refunds and reporting for this. According to statistics, about 75% of Americans who file documents for tax refunds receive their money. Among H&R Block customers, the success rate is higher - already about 85%. With Watson, partners hope to further increase the percentage of successful applications.

    In the process of working with people, Watson will ask questions by displaying them, and H&R Block customers will answer these questions. The whole process will be directed to the company's tax specialists. And help in this matter is almost always needed. 60% of the 140 million Americans who plan to use the opportunity to return taxes, request assistance from third-party companies and individuals.

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