2_use_case_name: Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Generative AI Chatbot Proof of Concept
3_agency: Department of the Treasury
3_abr: TREAS
4_bureau: Internal Revenue Service
8_topic_area: Mission-Enabling
10_commercial_ai: Searching for information using AI.
11_purpose_benefits: The objective of this AI project is to investigate the feasibility and applicability of using Large Learning Model, Retrieval-Augmented Generation AI technology to consolidate multiple sources of designated IRS publicly facing information into a simple question and answer tool.  It accomplishes this purpose by using a select data set to retrieve answers for questions asked by a small subset of Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) personnel during tax preparation (this is the Proof of Concept's use case). Currently, volunteers have to know where to go to find the information for which they are looking, across multiple, detailed documents.  This includes publications, forms, certification training guides, etc.   Once they determine which document to use, then they have to search for answer within that document.  This model uses the information provided (designated, publicly available IRS publications) to search for an answer and shows the user what document the information came from as well as the page.  This saves the user a lot of time and effort.  This model has been tested by two separate groups with a 99.5% accuracy rate for answers to questions asked.  Humans were very involved in the development and testing of this chatbot to ensure answers were correct, accurate and relevant to the questions asked. The chatbot was built with a survey-type feature whereby each answer is scored by the volunteer for the previously mentioned criteria.  The questions, answers, scores, and comments (feedback) from the volunteers is recorded within the chatbot for review and analysis to make further adjustments or fine tuning of the chatbot.  Chatbot input that resembles Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is blocked, so users cannot ask questions that include any form of PII.  The benefits of this proof-of-concept chatbot and this specific technology are to decrease the time and effort to prepare taxes (by using an IRS reference tool) and the volunteers will be able to provide more efficient service for taxpayers.  During initial Subject Matter Expert (SME) user testing, it was discovered some volunteers are already using publicly available Generative AI (GenAI) tools to find information.  This information is coming from all sources in the web-world, or wherever that GenAI tool is directed for information gathering.  The free Google Gemini tool is one of the examples a SME tester referenced.  If the IRS VITA GenAI chatbot tool is using information the IRS provides as the ONLY data source it uses as reference to provide an answer, the volunteer will know it is the correct answer, instead of the volunteer using a tool of their choice and assuming the answer is correct. This is a proof of concept and will expire at the end of the upcoming tax season (April 2025), The population impacted is a small number of VITA volunteers who have already been Certified under the VITA program and who Taxpayer Services and who agree to participate in the proof of concept to help determine its usefulness and applicability.  Stakeholder Partnerships, Education and Communication has vetted and asked to test while they are preparing taxes for those eligible under the VITA/Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) Programs.  The number will not exceed 30 testers.
12_outputs: chatbot-generated answers (to user-entered prompts; aka questions)
16_dev_stage: Acquisition and/or Development
17_impact_type: Neither