PwC is turning to AI to help its clients do their taxes

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PwC UK has unveiled a new tax software AI assistant that it says can be a powerful assistant that generates content as part of the delivery of services to clients and will be available to 2,300 PwC UK tax professionals.

The AI tool, trained specifically for UK tax purpose, is part of PwC’s broader strategy to spearhead AI adoption across the professional services market, which the company says plays an important role in benefiting its clients.

The tool has been developed alongside OpenAI and Harvey, a company tackling generative AI in the legal landscape.

PwC reveals AI tax assistant

The tax AI assistant uses generative AI to produce content, drawing on case law, legislation, and PwC UK’s intellectual property. The company says that the combination of its own tax expertise with technology from Harvey and OpenAI will help give clients enhanced insights, transparency, and quality.

Regular updates to the data used will ensure that the model remains current with changes to tax rules, offering significantly improved accuracy compared with publicly available large language models (LLMs) used in chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini (previously Bard).

Laura Hinton, PwC’s Tax, Legal and Workforce Leader in the UK, emphasized the transformative potential of generative AI: “Working with Harvey and OpenAI, we will be able to offer the most sophisticated tax AI enabled services and model in the market and further differentiate what we do, driving growth for our business, our clients and our people.”

Hinton summarized the company’s stance on responsible AI: “Our approach will always be human led, tech powered and AI will complement our expertise, allowing our subject matter experts to deliver deeper, more robust and transparent insights to our clients.”

Harvey co-founder Winston Winberg expressed excitement about the partnership: “This is a prime example of how AI can augment human expertise and transform the way professional services are delivered.”

In December 2023, Harvey announced $80 million in Series B funding. Part of the money came from the OpenAI Startup Fund. Part of the $21 million Series A funding in August 2023 was also provided by the OpenAI Startup Fund.

OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap said about the collaboration: “We're excited to continue partnering to help organizations across all industries thrive in an AI-first world.”

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