Mentioning AI
As AI becomes increasingly integrated into everyday tools, explicitly calling out the tech behind everything will become redundant and noisy. We want a user experience where intelligent help feels natural and expected, rather than something that needs to be constantly mentioned.
Don’t frame the technology as the benefit. Instead, focus on what customers can do because of the tech.
- 90 transactions categorized, 8 to review.
- Let’s see if we can lower your taxes.
- Accounting AI categorized 90 transactions for you.
- Lower taxes, guaranteed with Intuit’s Tax AI.
Always check with your legal council and adhere to legal requirements regarding the disclosure of AI in our products. Beyond these essentials, we should strive for more subtle communication through visual design affordances, and keep the focus on function.
Resources
- "Powered by AI” is not a value prop (Nielsen Norman Group)
- Humanizing AI is a trap (Nielsen Norman Group)
Agentic and agents
Agentic may be used to describe capabilities (like AI acting on your behalf), but should be used sparingly. It's technical jargon that might mean something to us, but is unfamiliar to others outside of tech.
At Intuit, we have AI experiences aligned to jobs and apps on the Intuit platform, formerly known as AI agents. These experiences are digital assistants designed to perform specific job—such as bookkeeping, marketing, or tax support—on behalf of customers.
[Job] AI is the descriptive name for individual agentic AI experiences (Bookkeeping AI, for example). Agentic naming is a formalized process requiring joint approval from marketing and design leadership. Don't apply the capitalized [Job] AI naming convention to your experience without completing a collaborative review process.
See also: agent, agentic, AI, Intuit AI
AI and powered by AI
Watch how often you use AI and phrases like powered by AI throughout the product. You may be working on one flow or one part of a product, but a user journey could be littered with these empty phrases if we’re not mindful of the end-to-end experience.
See also: AI, AI-powered
"Done for you" experiences
Only use the phrase done for you when talking about a specific task that's been done for the customer. AI isn’t yet at the point of being able to do full workflows for customers. Be specific about what’s being done and don’t oversell AI capabilities.
Otherwise, reserve the phrase for necessary legal disclosures or clearly defined educational contexts where transparency about the technology is essential.
For more on this, see our principle for fostering transparency and trust.
Intuit Intelligence and Intuit AI
Intuit Intelligence is the term for the combined support system of artificial intelligence and human expertise that help customers get the most out of our products. It’s the collective term for Intuit AI, human experts (Intuit and third party), and Business Intelligence (BI).
Intuit AI refers to the AI tools that span Intuit’s product ecosystem. Intuit Experts is how we refer to Intuit-trained human professionals.
For more details on when to use these terms, see Intuit Intelligence, Intuit AI, and Intuit Experts.
Style & formatting
Bold
Don’t use bold when writing about agents in body copy or other sentences.
The exception is in product headers, where you bold the discipline of the agent, but not AI.
In product headers:
- Finance AI
- Payments AI
- Project Management AI
Everywhere else:
- Connect your Gmail and Customer AI will identify leads to save you time.
- Get accuracy you can count on with Accounting AI.
- Payments AI learns your business and recommends payment strategies.
In product headers:
- Finance AI
- Payments AI
- Project Management AI
Everywhere else:
- Connect your Gmail and Customer AI will identify leads to save you time and draft personalized responses to help you follow up faster.
Capitalization
When referring to a specific AI tool, capitalize the name in title case.
- Payroll AI
- Payroll ai
- payroll AI
Point of view
Point of view shapes how customers understand who is acting, who is responsible, and what they should do next. The language we use to represent the “who” behind our experiences plays a critical role in building trust and maintaining clarity.
Use first person for chat interactions
First person responses allow for smoother back-and-forth between the customer and AI, and an “I” perspective creates an entity responsible for work done, separate from the trustworthy, Intuit “we.”
- 24 recent transactions categorized. Review and confirm to keep your books accurate.
Don’t brag about the technology
When representing work done by AI outside the context of conversation, focus on what was done and what the customer needs to do next, rather than highlighting the AI itself.
- I categorized 24 of your recent transactions. I matched them based on your past activity. Please review what I selected.
Embrace passive voice when needed
De-centering first-person in non-chat experiences may mean using passive voice more than we typically would. The usual concerns of passive voice—including less natural-sounding text and unclear responsibility—are less of a concern in these experiences. For more, see our general guidance on active and passive voice
Don’t rely on words for everything
Use visual design cues from our system libraries to clarify that AI has taken action.