‘Customers don’t care about AI’—they just want to boost cash flow and make ends meet, Intuit CEO says

While Wall Street and Silicon Valley are obsessed with artificial intelligence, many businesses don’t have the luxury to fixate on AI because they’re too busy trying to grind out more revenue.

At the Fortune Brainstorm AI conference in San Francisco on Monday, Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi acknowledged the day-to-day priorities of users of his company’s products, such as QuickBooks, TurboTax, Mailchimp, and Credit Karma.

“I remind ourselves at the company all the time: Customers don’t care about AI,” he told Fortune’s Andrew Nusca. “Everybody talks about AI, but the reality is a consumer is looking to increase their cash flow. A consumer is looking to power their prosperity to make ends meet. A business is trying to get more customers. They’re trying to manage their customers, sell them more services.”

Of course, AI still powers Intuit’s platforms, which help companies and entrepreneurs digest data that’s often stovepiped across dozens of separate applications they juggle. So Intuit declared years ago that it would focus on delivering “done-for-you experiences,” Goodarzi said.

On the enterprise side, it means helping businesses manage sales leads, cash flow, ac...