Startup, Built on OpenAI's GPT, Targets Tax Codes

"Muse Tax Inc., an early-stage startup based in New York, has found another task for artificial intelligence: navigating the complex and quickly changing tax codes that can trip up even experienced accountants.

The company is one of many across a range of industries that are starting to figure out how to make use of fast-breaking developments in AI -- by connecting to underlying AI platforms through software bridges known as application programming interfaces, or APIs, and building on top of the underlying technology.

Muse Tax was founded in February 2022 by Colin Horsford and Busayo Ogunsanya, both certified public accountants with years of experience in financial services. They connected to OpenAI's GPT technology with an API that allowed them to build their own software on top of the OpenAI platform.

The company has a business-to-business model, striking up partnerships with financial institutions. Muse Tax was funded with a combination of investments by its founders, as well as about $350,000 in preseed capital from early-stage investors including Techstars, the AI Operators Fund and Everywhere Ventures, formerly known as The Fund, according to Mr. Horsford. Muse Tax is raising a $2 million seed round, amid shifting market pressures, according to Mr. Horsford.

Users feed their tax returns and transaction data into the Muse Tax system, which can keep track of the all latest updates to the tax codes, according to Mr. Horsford, a veteran of American International Group Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other financial-services companies. The system recommends ways in which the user can keep tax bills to the minimum.

"You have to stay abreast," said Mr. Horsford. "During the pandemic, there were so many tax changes, preparers and accountants missed some. That is really what our model is trained to do to -- be more up-to-date and process information a lot faster than the average human preparer or accountant, even if they are very experienced," he said.

Muse Tax usually can make tax recommendations in 20 to 30 seconds -- sometimes as long as 45 seconds, he said. Humans can take five to seven hours for comparable advice and cost more, according to Mr. Horsford.

The Muse Tax system employs OpenAI's GPT-3 and GPT-3.5, and the company plans to soon move to the latest version, GPT-4, according to Mr. Horsford. GPT is a so-called generative AI technology that produces text, images and other kinds of content. It is the technological underpinning of OpenAI's ChatGPT, which can have conversations with human users on a range of topics for purposes such as synthesizing and summarizing information.

Muse Tax has procedures in place to oversee the responses generated by AI, according to Mr. Horsford. "We are familiar with the oversight needed when managing AI responses," he said, noting that his co-founder had prior experience building an AI chatbot called Ask My Uncle Sam." [1]

1. Startup, Built on OpenAI's GPT, Targets Tax Codes
Rosenbush, Steven.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 19 Apr 2023: B.4.