Co-opetition is one of the oldest tech sector cliches and in the AI age that’s not changed as established enterprise software vendors find new bedfellows in the shape of AI newcomers like Anthropic and OpenAI.
Given that the Finance role is one of those frequently cited as vulnerable to being automated by AI, Intuit is clearly on the front line of those firms that find themselves caught in the fall-out from the so-called ‘SaaSpocalypse’.
But CEO Sasan Goodarzi is not about to take that lying down it seems, pushing back against the assumption that AI vendors and Large Language Model (LLM) tech can displace what Intuit brings to the market:
The category that we operate in is a regulated environment. And in that compliance and security and accuracy is everything for customers. In fact, customers demand human expertise because what they are very focused on is in their high-stakes decisions, whether it's a consumer, business of any kind or an accountant, getting it wrong means huge, huge liabilities for the customer. And that's really the context behind the category, which really informs our advantage. We have a regulatory-driven advantage. We have customer-driven advantage.
He adds:
Our perspective is it is all about focusing on customers, all about putting points on the board. The thing I would point out is it's why companies like OpenAI, companies like Anthropic, look to partnership with us because at the end of the day, they see and understand that this is a business that comes with a lot of liability and LLMs can't just create the platform that we've created overnight.
Partnering
Intuit does partner with both OpenAI and Anthropic and this situation is pitched by Goodarzi as “wonderful” and one that benefits all parties:
Both OpenAI and Anthropic, one [are] wonderful partners. They are very interested in partnership because they actually see and understand the regulatory environment and the high-stake financial decisions that customers make and how important accuracy and compliance and safety is and the fact that customers actually demand the combination of technology and human expertise. And that is not an easy thing to replicate.
Frankly, in some ways, this addressable market is too small for them to even worry about, and that's why they rely on us. The why is really, really important, because they're heavily relying on us to provide the [customer] experience.
That’s an important point of mutual dependency, he argues:
The way the relationship is constructed and the way our platform is constructed, is that when customers engage, they're using our platform. In essence, it's through APIs and MCPs and it's in the contract. The data doesn't leave our four walls, the AI capabilities, which are domain-specific that we've built, doesn't leave our four walls. And it's about delivering the experience that the customer needs, whether it's within OpenAI or Anthropic.
From an economic perspective, we own the experience and the relationship, and we don't share in the economics, while at the same time, we've committed to continued use of external LLMs. So how the experience works is no customer data is shared, no domain expertise is shared, and frankly, they have zero interest in it.
He explains:
For Anthropic and OpenAI, the context for them when a customer is in their app is what's the customer's intent? That’s core to them. Once they identify what the customer wants, then it becomes very much our skills, our experiences, [that’s] what the customers use and they're in our platform. From our perspective and the LLM providers, it's actually a very clear cut how we are partnering to deliver experiences for customers.
As for Intuit:
Why we are interested in a partnership with them, beyond being where the eyeballs are, the example that I would use when you look at our capabilities versus like Claude Cowork is we're actually making Claude Cowork capabilities available in Intuit Enterprise Suite because there are things that Claude Cowork does that we don't need to go build.
He cites a use case example of a restaurant located in the tourist area that wants to understand what are the tourist trends, how does it get impacted by weather, and ultimately, how is that connected to taking their POS data, their Intuit platform data, to get daily updates and forecast as to what their traffic into their restaurant could be:
We don't need to go build an LLM for that, but we can integrate Claude Cowork into our platform, which we are, and it's the brains of our platform is delivering the accuracy and the compliance, but the LLMs of Claude Cowork actually allows the customer to see the specifics of what they need to be able to better run their business.
Now, the customer doesn't know what they're doing, what they're using. All they care about is they're asking for this KPI to be present to them. So that's where we're very clear in our partnership. And by the way, we both see the need of what's context versus core and vice versa. And that's just a real-life example of where the lines are.
Human intelligence
Intuit’s strategy of delivering AI-powered human intelligence is one that diginomica explored last year with Goodarzi citing the firm’s platform being “fueled by data, AI and HI”. This is a strategy that continues to find traction with customers, says Goodarzi:
We're actually seeing an acceleration of the need of combining both technology and human expertise because of the notion of confidence and certainty in things done right...Our system of intelligence combines AI and HI to deliver done-for-you experiences with accuracy, compliance, security, reliability and data privacy that create a durable competitive advantage. This foundation delivers what matters most to customers, when it comes to financial insights, money management, taxes, book-keeping and accounting, leading to a complete confidence in their high stakes financial decisions. We're setting the standard for trusted financial intelligence
There’s also AI agent traction, he says, citing:
Over three million customers have leveraged agents to do the work for them with all-time repeat engagement of more than 85%. In January alone, our accounting agents saved time and delivered impact for our customers by categorizing over 237 million transactions. This represents over half of all the transactions categorized that month.
My take
LLMs are looking to work with us and not against us.
That’s the confident assertion of Intuit CFO Sandeep Aujla, who explains:
When customers think or investors think about the relationship we have with these LLMs, the [SaaSpocalypse] moat that we have comes from our proprietary data, and that data is not leaving our four walls that stays here. That’s not being impacted.
Our moat comes from being the core of the flow of funds, whether it's access to capital, whether it's hours worked by the employees, whether it's money flow, that's not being touched by these LLMs.
Our moat comes from human intelligence being a massive differentiator, particularly in areas that we play with, which is high stakes financial decisions, high liability, regulatory decisions, that's a moat that remains with us. That's the one where I would ask folks to step back and look at what generates the moat and how that moat remains untouched. And in fact, it's being augmented in this new era of AI.
March 3, 2026
