.NET is “opportunity of a lifetime” for developers, says H&R Block Principal Architect

H&R Block wanted to build its first AI-assisted tax preparation solution for individual filers.

H&R Block knew it wanted to build the solution using Microsoft Azure and Azure services and develop it in .NET. Azure security with .NET means businesses can build highly secure, scalable, and compliant applications.

The company’s Principal Architect shares why this was the best decision for both its customers and developer teams.

Half of 150 million US taxpayers file their own returns. H&R Block, a tax preparation company, focuses on building customer confidence as they go through the process. For the 2024 tax season, H&R Block launched AI Tax Assist, a generative AI tool that streamlines online tax filing by empowering customers to ask questions during the workflow. Vin Kamat, Principal Architect at H&R Block, shares why his team built the solution inMicrosoft Azurecloud-native services and developed it in.NET, using Azure OpenAI Service—and why .NET offers a significant opportunity for AI innovation.

Microsoft: Why did H&R Block choose to build AI Tax Assist in .NET? What difference did it make for developers and customers?

Vin Kamat, H&R Block: We explored other technologies, including Python, but we chose .NET for AI Tax Assist because it allowed us to utilize our team’s existing expertise and move quickly. It was easy to onboard and continue using the same stack, architectural principles, and technologies they were accustomed to and move faster in the development processes.

AI Tax Assist is H&R Block’s first AI-powered tax preparation solution. We wanted to utilize Microsoft expertise in generative AI. .NET easily interoperates with Microsoft Azure and Azure services, such as Azure OpenAI Service,Azure App Service, and Azure Functions, and offers seamless experiences for model development and deployment, as well as deploying and managing applications. This aligns with our preference for platform as a service (PaaS) solutions—it reduces time developers spend on infrastructure management and simplifies deploying, scaling, and managing workloads.

.NET easily interoperates with Microsoft Azure and Azure services, such as Azure OpenAI Service, Azure App Service, and Azure Functions, and offers seamless experiences for model development and deployment, as well as deploying and managing applications.

Vin Kamat, Principal Architect, H&R Block

Azure OpenAI Service powers the AI capabilities of AI Tax Assist, and its interoperation with .NET powers real-time, reliable tax filing assistance. It also helps customers get accurate and up-to-date information on tax forms, deductions, credits, and recent tax law changes. Customers can ask questions conversationally and revisit previous conversation threads.

Additionally, .NET is known for high performance, reliability, and scalability. It includes features like Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation and native optimization, which help applications run more efficiently, improving the customer experience. At tax time, we support millions of users simultaneously. The combination of .NET and Azure services powers AI Tax Assist to scale and manage peak demands without issues.

Microsoft: You’ve said that in this age of AI, .NET offers the opportunity of a lifetime for developers. Why?

Vin Kamat, H&R Block: It’s true. For most developers, .NET is a familiar and efficient development experience. Generative AI models like ChatGPT have made AI accessible to everyone. This accessibility makes it easy for developers to use familiar .NET stacks and Azure services coupled with tools likeVisual Studio and Azure DevOps to integrate AI capabilities into their applications.

.NET is designed to enhance developer productivity with features like language interoperability and a powerful integrated development environment in Visual Studio. .NET also has Azure SDKs and Semantic Kernel SDKs that simplify the process of integrating AI capabilities into existing applications. These are highly modular and extensible, so developers can easily add or swap out components as needed, making .NET great for experimenting and truly innovating without having to learn new languages or tools.

As a cross-platform framework, .NET empowers developers to build applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux so their AI innovations can run on multiple operating systems. In addition, .NET has a large, active community. It’s backed by Microsoft, which means plenty of resources, libraries, and frameworks are available. Now, with GitHub Copilot, developers have even more productivity and efficiency gains.

At tax time, we support millions of users simultaneously. The combination of .NET and Azure services powers AI Tax Assist to scale and manage peak demands without issues.

Vin Kamat, Principal Architect, H&R Block

Microsoft: What would you say to other businesses considering .NET?

Vin Kamat, H&R Block:Companies prioritize security and compliance. With .NET, developers can use Azure SDK best practices and patterns—as well as Azure capabilities like Azure Key Vault, NSGs (network security groups), and virtual networking to build and host secure apps in Azure. The solid security infrastructure of Azure with the flexibility and power of .NET means businesses can build more secure, scalable, and compliant applications..NET is a robust platform for innovation. Organizations can empower existing developer skill sets and infrastructure to easily integrate AI technologies to drive high-impact contributions to their business andinspire technological advancements. With .NET, the possibilities for developers are limitless.