Hello fellow keepers of numbers,

We’ve got a few noteworthy accounting software announcements this week. Intuit has partnered with Anthropic to put the power of Claude Code and Claude Cowork into QuickBooks and other Intuit products. Basis claims they’ve automed 1065 prep end-to-end and become a billion-dollar company.

Perplexity Computer launches for Max plan subscribers to compete with Claude Cowork. Speaking of Cowork, Anthropic shipped new features again. The most noteworthy being scheduled tasks that can utilize your connectors in Claude. Lastly, Notion launches Custom Agents that can do work for you.

THE LATEST

Intuit announced a multi-year partnership with Anthropic to integrate Claude’s Agent SDK across its platform. Businesses will be able to build secure, customizable AI agents on Intuit’s infrastructure that are tuned to their industry, workflows, and compliance requirements. Intuit frames them as task-taking agents that can act on financial data within defined guardrails.

Intuit says these agents can combine Intuit data, such as expenses, payroll, and project billing, with third-party data like POS or inventory systems to automate work, including margin analysis, cash-flow forecasting, and compliance tracking. Example use cases include a restaurant group agent that flags margin variances across locations and a construction agent that links project timelines, lien waivers, and payments to cash-flow forecasts. The first customer experiences are scheduled to roll out to Intuit and Anthropic users starting in Spring 2026.

The partnership also works in the other direction. Intuit’s financial intelligence and tools will be embedded directly into Anthropic’s products, including Claude.ai, Claude for Enterprise, and Cowork. According to Intuit, all of this will run on its existing security, compliance, and data governance framework, with agents operating only with customer permission on their own data. Intuit is also rolling out Anthropic’s Claude Code internally across its engineering teams, which it says will help accelerate the delivery of new AI-powered features.

Why it’s important for us:

This is a great partnership for Intuit, and an even better one for QBO customers. We’ll have to wait and see how they integrate these agents into QBO, but the Claude Agent SDK is the same thing that powers Claude Code and Claude Cowork, so I’m cautiously optimistic.

This is also an interesting partnership because it comes 3 months after Intuit reportedly paid $100M to partner with OpenAI. It’s unclear how this affects that partnership, if at all. But similar to the OpenAI partnership, the deal with Anthropic puts Intuit products as verified connectors in Claude. This includes the MCP connectors used in Claude Cowork, which make this deal hugely beneficial for Claude and QBO customers.

Basis announced a $100M Series B round at a $1.15B valuation to grow its AI agent platform for accountants. The round was led by Accel with participation from GV, Khosla Ventures, and several well-known tech operators and investors.

Basis builds “long-horizon” AI agents that can run complex, multi-step accounting workflows for hours at a time, similar to how AI coding tools handle extended programming tasks. The company says its agents can work across CAS, tax, and audit, learning client-specific needs and returning completed work products for human review.

Basis also claims to have built the first AI agent to complete an end-to-end 1065 partnership tax return. It says it’s already working with roughly 30% of the Top 25 accounting firms in the U.S. to deploy these agents into production workflows.

Why it’s important for us:

Basis is one of the most interesting AI companies in the accounting space. Their valuation would imply they’ve cracked the code for accounting AI agents, or will do so imminently. 

They’ve also claimed to have built an AI agent that can complete a 1065 return end-to-end. If “end-to-end” means from the moment a client signs on until the point at which the return is ready to be e-filed, that would be an incredibly impressive feat. I haven’t seen this agent, but I’m assuming there are quite a few caveats to that claim. As most accountants are aware, no 1065 return is the same.

Pricing is also a bit of a concern with Basis. Admittedly, I don’t know their pricing model. But when you receive over $100M in funding, and you’re already working with a large chunk of the Top 25, the price point might be beyond the budget of smaller firms.

All that said, this is one of the most exciting companies in the accounting space. They seem to be at the leading edge of applying AI in our field.

Perplexity announced Perplexity Computer, a cloud-based “digital worker” that takes a goal like “build a dashboard” or “summarize a data set weekly,” breaks it into subtasks, and runs those tasks autonomously in the background. It spins up specialized sub-agents for research, coding, and image generation, each running in its own sandboxed environment with access to a real browser, filesystem, and connected apps. The system keeps persistent project memory so it can work on longer projects for hours or even months without starting from scratch each time.

Under the hood, Computer orchestrates a pool of 19 different AI models from multiple providers, routing each subtask to the model best suited for it. Perplexity positions this as a step beyond chatbots and simple agents, moving toward a general-purpose AI coworker that can manage end-to-end workflows.

Perplexity Computer is available today for Perplexity Max subscribers, which costs $200 per month and includes a pool of usage-based credits. Access for Pro and Enterprise tiers is planned.

Why it’s important for us:

Perplexity literally wrote in their announcement that it’s capable of running “for months.” That’s a WILD claim. There’s just no chance that’s accurate. Opus 4.6 is currently the best-in-class model in METR’s study for the time horizon models can work autonomously. Currently, Opus 4.6 can work for 14.5 hours and autonomously complete the task ~50% of the time. So, one month is simply not realistic. I’m not sure what Perplexity meant by that. Now that we’ve cleared that up…

Seemingly every major AI company is chasing the hype of OpenClaw. It makes sense. OpenClaw is still a security nightmare, especially for businesses. The first to capitalize on a safe option for consumers and businesses could instantly catapult themselves into the upper echelon.

Meta made a move a few weeks ago with Manus agents. Anthropic continues to ship updates for Claude Cowork, including scheduled tasks, which gives users autonomous agents. Now, Perplexity Computer is a legitimate competitor.

Pricing is a huge concern for me with Perplexity Computer. Agents often require quite a bit of testing before they’re production-ready. That’s going to eat a chunk of the monthly credits. It’s also a bit of a black box when AI agents run. How many credits will they consume for each task? Is it consistent?

The big knock thus far with Manus agents has been how expensive it can be. Similarly, the influencers hyping up OpenClaw are spending hundreds of dollars a day. Those numbers might make sense for influencers posting things on YouTube or social media, but do the numbers and effectiveness make sense for businesses?

This is why Claude Code and Claude Cowork still have major advantages over the other options. Still, Perplexity Computer is worth watching. I’m definitely going to test it once it rolls out to Pro plan users.

PUT IT TO WORK

Anthropic just keeps shipping killer features, many of which are in Claude Cowork. This week, they released a scheduled tasks feature and a new Customize tab where plugins will live. After updating your app, your options should now look like this:

With scheduled tasks, you can set up specific tasks/actions that run on a regular cadence. When you click the “Scheduled” button on the sidebar, this screen will open:

The most obvious example (even Anthropic agrees since it’s the placeholder text) is summarizing your email inbox. Any tool that has a connector in Claude, or where you can create one via an MCP connection, is possible to include in scheduled tasks.

It’s as simple as writing a short prompt telling Claude which tools to use (e.g., Gmail, Google Calendar, Notion, etc.) and what to do. When the task runs, it automatically uses the connectors it needs to complete the task.

The new Customize tab now makes plugins look a little cleaner. They’ve also added more plugins, such as brand voice, design, and human resources. Go check out all the new options.

It’s also easier to see your skills and connectors available in Cowork. Remember, if an app you use has an MCP but isn’t natively included in Claude, you can add it as a custom connector, which will allow you to include it in Cowork tasks.

WEEKLY RANDOM

Notion is quietly one of the strongest AI companies. If you’re unfamiliar with Notion, it gained traction as a productivity tool. Its simple architecture and keyboard shortcuts made it a go-to for notes and tasks, and made it easy to organize and find your info. It has since grown into a monster project management tool that has done an amazing job integrating AI and agents into the platform.

Notion’s AI is capable of building entire databases from scratch, including relational fields linking to other databases. It’s also capable of searching your entire library of information to quickly find the right pages or answer questions.

This week, Notion released Custom Agents. These agents can be created to cover nearly any task. They’re triggered on a schedule or by specific actions. It’s hard to cover all the use cases, but take a look at their announcement video to get an idea.

If you’re an existing user of Notion, this is an exciting announcement. If not, Notion has instantly become a much more attractive option.

There are already accounting firms using Notion as their practice management system. Think about the power now with custom agents. You can create an agent that handles scheduling to identify backlogs and reassign or message teammates. You can create an agent that’s in charge of a CRM to automatically update records when information is logged for a client or project, or add new CRM contacts at the end of each day based on emails exchanged with new prospects. You can create an agent that cleans up messy data in your tasks, projects, or clients.

Notion is easily one of the leaders in AI deployed within its existing application. I expect their Custom Agents to be another successful deployment.