• by Thom Forbes , February 2, 2017

H&R Block is not trumpeting its newest employee as an expansion of its workforce — in fact, one might view it as a harbinger of how difficult it will be for any entity to “bring jobs back” as smart and capable bots proliferate in the work place. The tax preparer and IBM announced yesterday that Watson, the artificial intelligence system, is joining the team later this week in a “new, exclusive, consumer-facing experience.”

Not that the folks wearing green eyeshades are out to pasture, quite yet, as H&R Block president and CEO Bill Cobb tells us right at the outset of a craftily constructed statement.

“By combining the human expertise, knowledge and judgment of our tax professionals with the cutting-edge cognitive computing power of Watson, we are creating a future where our clients will benefit from an enhanced experience and our tax pros will have the latest technology to help them ensure every deduction and credit is found,” Cobb says. “This partnership with Watson means we can leverage the best technology available to help our clients get their taxes won.”

Watson’s presence in our lives, which has been positioned as augmenting rather than replacing human beings, has been rapidly evolving since it took up a second residence in San Francisco, where the “disruptors” congregate, in September 2015.

“In its first steps toward commercialization, IBM’s Watson took on grand, science-laden challenges like helping doctors diagnose cancer. But that is changing as IBM strives to build its artificial intelligence technology into a multibillion-dollar business,” writes Steve Lohr for the New York Times. “Today, companies including Geico, Staples and Macy’s are adding the Watson technology to answer customer questions or to improve mobile apps that guide shoppers through stores.”

The newest partnership “is intended to help enliven the often long and mundane meetings between customers and H&R Block tax professionals. The tax services giant is hoping that the digital helper will attract more customers to its offices instead of those customers doing their taxes at home using competing online services like TurboTax,” writes Jonathan Vanian for Fortune.

But, says Cobb, “this is not a promotion,” Vanian reports. “Watson is not cheap.”

H&R Block’s George Gaustello tells The Verge’s James Vincent “that the idea is to share expertise around the company. ‘We have 70,000 experts, but let’s say 500 of those are very knowledgeable about firefighters, or they know every credit deduction a farmer can get. That information then becomes part of Watson, which offers its own suggestions during interviews, ‘making our experts even smarter.’” 

And, writes Vincent, the folks at H&R Block “were keen to stress that they didn’t think Watson would ever take jobs away from humans. ‘In no way or shape or form’ would this happen, said Gaustello. ‘The tax code is constantly changing. So the system will have to constantly learn and be constantly trained. The [human] tax expert is always going to be front and center.’”

“Watson will help unearth technicalities that could help a client get esoteric benefits, such as the lifetime learning credit — a new deduction of up to $2,000 for continuing education courses,” writes Sean Captain for Fast Company. “‘That is a little-known credit that was just ... passed by Congress last year,’ adds Cobb. Block's tax preparers have been trained on the new credit, he says, but Watson will make sure they remember it.”

The Watson partnership will be featured this Sunday in H&R Block’s first Super Bowl commercial since 2009, writes the Detroit News’ Susan Tompor for USA Today. Airing during the first quarter, it “plays up the H&R Block advertising theme this tax season for how to ‘Get your taxes won.’ It also will feature actor Jon Hamm,” she reports, but the company would reveal no more.

“There are a number of things that could be automated in the tax preparation process, but H&R Block decided to focus on identifying deductions and credits,” writes John Mannes for TechCrunch. “The consumer-facing approach will do the firm well. At the end of the day, most people really only care about paying as little in taxes as possible and maximizing the size of their refund.”

Indeed, self-interest is a concept any marketer can take to the bank.