Intuit Unveils AI-Powered Virtual Team to Drive Efficiency and Growth for UK SMBs
Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU), the global financial technology leader behind TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, has announced a groundbreaking advancement in its All-in-One platform. The company is introducing a team of AI agents alongside trusted human experts, designed to supercharge QuickBooks with automation, insights, and efficiency for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the United Kingdom. This innovation comes as Intuit releases The Growth Gap, a new report highlighting how inefficiencies and decision fatigue are holding back 58% of UK SMBs from achieving their full growth potential.
A Smarter, More Automated QuickBooks Experience
Available now to QuickBooks customers in the UK, this enhanced platform combines AI-driven agents with expert human support to streamline essential financial tasks. These virtual assistants operate across key pillars of business operations, including customer management, accounting, finance, VAT compliance, and project management. By automating repetitive processes, surfacing actionable insights, and fostering seamless collaboration between business owners and accountants, the platform empowers smarter, faster decision-making.
Businesses leveraging these tools can save up to 12 hours per month* by simplifying day-to-day operations such as bookkeeping, financial analysis, customer relationship management, and project tracking. The platform’s redesigned interface further enhances usability, offering a personalised homepage filled with customisable widgets. These widgets display real-time insights, recommendations, and summaries of workflows completed by the AI agents, creating a central hub for productivity and growth.
Meet the AI Agents Revolutionising Business Operations
The virtual team of AI agents introduced within QuickBooks includes:
- Accounting Agent: Automates bookkeeping and categorisation to ensure accuracy while flagging anomalies early. It also facilitates smooth collaboration with accounting professionals.
- Customer Agent: Identifies high-value leads directly from your inbox, drafts personalised responses, schedules meetings, and tracks opportunities throughout the sales cycle.
- Finance Agent: Generates comprehensive financial summaries, including profit and loss statements, cash flow reports, and balance sheets.
- Project Management Agent: Accelerates project setup by auto-filling key details and minimising manual data entry.
- VAT AI Agent (Beta): Ensures compliance by identifying discrepancies between income on Profit and Loss statements and net sales amounts on VAT returns. It suggests likely causes and proposes corrective actions.
These agents work seamlessly together across the Intuit platform, reducing operational drag and enabling businesses to focus on strategic growth initiatives. Additionally, users can integrate third-party apps and access other Intuit products like Mailchimp, unlocking even greater value.
Bridging the Growth Gap
Intuit’s The Growth Gap report underscores the urgent need for solutions like these. In the UK, inefficiencies and decision fatigue are costing SMBs dearly—58% of their growth potential remains untapped. Addressing this gap could boost annual revenues across the UK SMB economy by 7.9%, translating to an average increase of £121,272 per company**.
Despite widespread optimism among SMB leaders, many struggle with daily operational challenges. The report reveals that three out of four UK SMBs have abandoned growth-generating ideas multiple times in the past year. Leaders lose nearly a full working day (6.6 hours) each week switching between disconnected tools, while 40% remain bogged down in routine tasks, leaving only 5% confident in delegating responsibilities**.
To address these pain points, Intuit has developed a Growth Readiness Scorecard, which identifies two distinct groups of businesses. High-readiness firms (39%) are agile, data-driven, and strategically flexible, while low-readiness firms (27%)—referred to as “overstretched operators”—rely heavily on manual processes and individual effort. This scorecard serves as a roadmap for SMBs to prioritise improvements and adopt automation where it matters most.
Unlocking the AI Dividend
According to the study, 80% of UK SMB leaders believe AI can help them delegate more effectively while maintaining oversight—a concept Intuit calls the “AI Dividend.” By automating time-consuming tasks, AI frees up valuable time and provides clarity, empowering leaders to act with confidence.
Ciarán Quilty, Senior Vice-President for International at Intuit, explained: “Ambition is abundant, but everyday complexity obstructs progress. When routine work is automated, time and visibility return, giving leaders the insights they need to make informed decisions.”
Leigh Thomas, Vice President EMEA at Intuit, added: “Inefficiency is the hidden tax on growth, and AI is the great rebalancer. With QuickBooks on the Intuit platform, we’re helping businesses bridge the gap between opportunity and execution. Automation handles what counts, while human expertise addresses what matters.”
Real-World Impact: Testimonials from Early Adopters
Entrepreneurs and accountants alike are already seeing transformative results. Harry Pill, Founder of Freshcut Video, shared: “QuickBooks holds years’ worth of my business data, but I’m not qualified to analyse it all. The AI agents bring it together in a way I can understand, helping me make better decisions and grow my business.”
Aaron Patrick, Head of Accounts at Boffix, echoed this sentiment: “The Intuit platform resets how accountants deliver value. With AI handling tedious tasks like reconciliations, we can focus on advising clients about why their numbers change—not just what they are. The integration across QuickBooks, Mailchimp, and the broader Intuit ecosystem connects financial insight with real-world business activity, redefining the role of accountants in the age of AI.”
About Intuit
Intuit is the global financial technology platform that powers prosperity for the people and communities we serve. With approximately 100 million customers worldwide using products such as TurboTax, Credit Karma, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp, we believe that everyone should have the opportunity to prosper. We never stop working to find new, innovative ways to make that possible. Please visit us at Intuit.com and find us on social for the latest information about Intuit and our products and services.
About the Study
This research is conducted in partnership with Dr Chris Brauer, Director of Innovation, Goldsmiths, University of London between September and October 2025. Dr Brauer’s research team included Research Director Dr Jennifer Barth and a core group of economists, psychologists, data and social scientists from UK-based research firm Symmetry Insights. They used a mixed method approach to build a model and scorecard of the growth gap. Censuswide surveys of 1200 small and medium business leaders across each of the UK, AUS and Canada (n=3600) were conducted in September 2025.
