Case Study

Built in Two Days, Saving Hours on Every Return

SUMMARY/OVERVIEW

How BDO USA’s Guided Grassroots Transformation Turns Employee Ideas Into Impactful AI Agents

Tax returns take time. Manually opening files, searching PDFs, tracing numbers, comparing workpapers, and drafting notes all require extensive effort — and that’s before a tax professional begins their analysis. But what if there were a way to speed up the manual parts of that process and move directly into the knowledge and judgment phase, something that can only be done with a trained professional’s discretion?

That was the question two BDO Tax team members asked, with a plan to leverage artificial intelligence tools the firm had already licensed to answer it. The result was an approach we call Guided Grassroots Transformation, which saw our people build more than 2,500 AI agents in 90 days.

Senior Tax Manager Yvonne Ofori built one of those agents in 48 hours based on an idea she got from Principal Cassie Hartogs. Within weeks, 45 Tax colleagues were using the quality check agent, “Tara,” with the potential to introduce significant annual savings in professional time.

Having demonstrated the approach’s effectiveness, we’re now bringing Guided Grassroots Transformation to our clients.

Key Takeaways

400x ROI, with significant professional time saved and returned to higher-value work annually.

Coworkers-RQuality check agent built in two days and in use by 45 colleagues within weeks.

Calendar and Time_rAgent assisting with tax returns annually, saving one to two hours of work on each.

Person reading a stack of papers.
The Challenge

Accelerating Time-Consuming Work

Preparing tax returns requires experience and knowledge that only a skilled professional can provide. But before the analytical work can begin, the process involves numerous manual tasks to gather and organize information, all of which take valuable time. To speed up the returns process and get to the judgment and analysis phase, Yvonne and Cassie saw an opportunity to apply BDO’s already-licensed AI tools to accelerate the manual steps of the work.

Image of two people looking at a laptop.
The Approach

From Idea to Rollout

Our firm’s ambitious goal of transforming 14,000 employees into an AI lab had already set the stage for what Cassie and Yvonne had in mind when they began working on the quality check agent. Combining the firm’s enthusiasm for AI with an idea Cassie had when preparing her sister’s tax return, Yvonne looked to address several necessary steps involved in every tax return:

  • Searching PDFs
  • Checking figures against workpapers
  • Tracing sources
  • Drafting notes

After identifying the agent’s objectives, Yvonne set to work building the agent, completing the initial version in just two days.

“I didn’t start with the goal of building a chatbot,” Yvonne said. “I started with a review problem.”

Quality check agent “Tara” showed an immediate impact, and upon going live, firm leadership noticed the agent, audited the results, and chose it for a larger rollout.

“Think of it as an experienced senior tax manager doing an independent quality review. It organizes and drafts. The reviewer validates and decides,” Yvonne said.

Image of a person typing on a laptop.
The Results

Saving Time, Money, and Effort

Shortly after Tara was available to the Tax team, 45 colleagues had begun using it, stating that its outputs were as good as their own. This has resulted in one to two hours of work saved per tax return, making the total projected cost and time savings annually significant.

Yvonne spent two days building the prototype and about 30 minutes a day managing Tara. Including her time and the cost of the AI tool, the total annual expense is approximately $25,000. Based on that information, it’s estimated that Tara will create a 400x ROI, providing significant annual savings of professional time  and allowing resources to be directed to higher-value work.

Tara is only the beginning. Approximately 3,500 BDO professionals took a self-assessment in 2026 to evaluate how they used AI, where the technology was helping them, and where it was creating challenges. After that assessment, nearly 200 participants took part in our AI Champions program, which includes training their colleagues in agent-building skills and continuing to build on the firm’s commitment to deploying AI effectively.

From this foundation, Guided Grassroots Transformation is leading the way for our firm to continue innovating and helping our clients to do the same.

Most firms treat AI as a technology purchase. We treat it as a people transformation. Yvonne needed no project and no developer, just a license she already had, two days, and permission. Our job was to notice and then to give it to the whole practice.

Matthew Becker
Chief Executive Officer, BDO USA