IBM Watson will work as a tax specialist

IBM has long attracted the IBM Watson cognitive system to solving practical issues. It includes diagnostics in medicine, law, work as a meteorologist, cook, financier, plus a lot more. It has now been decided to give Watson another profession - a tax specialist.

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

For IBM, working with H & R Block means that you can expand the reach of your IBM Watson capabilities. Especially important for the company is working with the corporate sector, which is now being implemented.
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According to experts, cognitive systems, in particular, Watson, by 2018 will be involved in 75% of corporate applications produced by companies both for their clients and for their own employees. In particular, David Shubehme, an analyst from 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 increase.

Watson learns new specialties very quickly. His main ability is the collection, analysis and classification of primary data with the identification of links between the individual elements of such data. In order for the cognitive system to be able to assist in working with taxes, she 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 stage is the training of IBM Watson by H & R Block. They will ask the system questions and correct the answers if they are not entirely correct.


IBM Watson has already tested its strength in 100 offices of the company in January of this year. At the next stage, the system will work in the H & R Block retail network. One of the main tasks of Watson is to help the company's clients in the matter of tax refund and reporting for this. According to statistics, about 75% of Americans who apply for a tax refund, get their money. Among H & R Block's customers, the success rate is higher - already around 85%. With the help of Watson, partners are hoping to raise the percentage of successful applications even more.

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