TaxAct features SmartFile AI, an in-product assistant designed to help you navigate your tax return. The tool answers questions, explains upcoming steps, and analyzes your screen in real-time, all without ever training on your personal or sensitive data.

Filing is high stakes, especially for people with 1099 income, deductions, or multi-state returns. When users get stuck, they rarely fix it inside the product. They leave to search, ask a CPA, or abandon the return.

AI could help in those moments, but tax is not a place for novelty. Accuracy, trust, and compliance mattered more than speed.

The challenge was simple to say and hard to design. Help people move forward without breaking trust.

I led the design of SmartFile AI for TaxAct, tested six interaction models during peak filing season, then shaped how the winning model worked on every screen, including the phones most people file on.

This round was about the experience itself: what kind of help belongs in a tax return. Is it support, document handling, or a guide? Each variant explored a different mix of AI visibility, consent, capability, and entry point. We started at 1% of traffic and scaled to full exposure by mid April. The goal was never clicks. It was finding the model that helped people stay in the filing flow and make progress.

6 variants running in parallel 1% starting traffic exposure mid April scaled to full exposure

SmartFile lives in an optional bubble in the corner. Tap it and three actions fan out: ask a question, add a document, or find a section. It stays out of the way until you want it, so help never competes with the return.

Consent first. A plain note on what the AI does and does not do, before it touches the return.

Document-aware prefill. Upload a W-2, SmartFile reads it, shows what it found, then fills the fields after you agree.

Review before continuing. Filled fields stay editable. Nothing is committed without a look.

A path back. When SmartFile routes you to a section, it keeps a visible way back to where you were filing.

Suggested prompts. Quick starts so no one faces an empty box.

Add your employer information from your W-2. SmartFile can help read documents, answer questions, and guide you to the right section.

Review and edit anything before continuing.

I treated the season like a live experiment. Six variants ran in parallel. Weak ideas were removed quickly. Stronger ones were expanded.

The tooltip entry point had low engagement and was removed within the first day. We also rejected a full chat-first destination because it pulled users away from the return.

The strongest model combined chat, document upload, and AI-assisted prefill. It gave users help in context instead of sending them somewhere else. I shaped the mobile version so the same help fit the phone, where most returns get filed.

The variant I drove outperformed every other model across engagement signals, including session depth and interaction frequency.

155,235 consents across the season 111,960 sessions during the launch window 24,000 sessions on Tax Day 66.7% deep engagement, 2+ turns 49.7% at 3+ turns 14.1% of sessions used document upload

It was the clearest signal that users would use AI inside the filing flow when it helped them complete the task in context.

“I hate ai, but darn it, yours was helpful.” — TaxAct user, 5-star review, Trustpilot