For better or worse, the AI age is upon us. While grand technological revolutions in healthcare and reports of the coming apocalypse may be well-suited for headlines, AI’s impact on everyday Americans’ routine tasks — i.e., how they file their taxes — will more likely come to define it. However, that may not be for a while.

According to The American Survey (powered by What If Media Group), 4% of Americans plan to file their taxes this April using AI tax-preparation software. Specifically, these are tools that defer the heavy lifting of the tax filing process to AI — as opposed to companies like H&R Block and TurboTax, which have implemented AI chatbots to assist with the filing process (with middling success at best) but do not allow AI to do any actual calculations.

If you tense up at the thought of an algorithm doing your taxes, you’re not alone. 73% of Americans say they wouldn’t trust AI with the task, even given recent advances in the tech’s capabilities. Whether out of fear, habit, or prudence, 17% of respondents refuse to use anything other than a real accountant, trusting only a human to help them navigate the profoundly human penetralia of federal and state tax law.

Of those opting for regular ol’ online tax prep as a middle ground, nearly a third are using TurboTax. However, a number of Americans, perhaps fed up with what the Federal Trade Commission deemed “deceptive advertising,” have found alternatives. 11% of online tax-prep users plan to file this year using FreeTaxUSA, a smaller-name company that presents itself as more transparently priced.

Come Tax Day (April 15th), the Internal Revenue Service will have around 130 million tax returns to process, filed using every method under the sun. The apocalypse will have to wait.

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Data reported by The American Survey is based on at least 23,900 responses from our 500,000 daily users polled randomly across the United States, giving us a 99% confidence level with a margin of error of +/-1%. To learn more about this survey or how our surveys can help you, contact: https://whatifmediagroup.com/pr/