Irish tax office testing out artificial intelligence for customer services

Ireland’s Office of the Revenue Commissioners is working with Accenture to pilot the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and provide services to citizens via a virtual assistant.

The voice bot can understand a caller’s request through voice-processing technology and respond to it.

The pilot will test the potential for virtual assistants to answer general queries over the phone at Ireland’s HMRC equivalent. This is another example of the potential of cognitive agents in the workplace.

John Barron, CIO at the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, said the organisation is looking at ways to improve its interactions with customers.

“We recognise the potential benefits of artificial intelligence tools and believe this pilot will help us to identify innovative ways to improve taxpayer interaction and operational efficiency.”

A global survey of taxpayers, carried out by Accenture, found that almost 70% would use AI to file their tax returns.
 
“With artificial intelligence starting to permeate nearly every aspect of our daily life, from digital voice assistants to smart home devices, revenue agencies are also looking to its potential in their own operations,” said David Regan, head of work with revenue agencies and tax authorities at Accenture. “It won’t be long before citizens will be able to talk to tax-expert automated bots to understand and pay their taxes.”

According to a recent survey from Capgemini, almost three-quarters of consumers have already interacted with AI and 69% of them are satisfied about how it went. The survey of 10,000 consumers also found that 55% of people prefer a mix of AI and humans when they interact with organisations.

The survey also revealed that, 63% of consumers who are au fait with AI said they like the assistance provided by AI because it offers 24-hour.