The Internal Revenue Service has begun deploying Salesforce’s Agentforce platform across several divisions, marking the agency’s first widespread use of AI agents, according to a report in Axios. The rollout comes during a period of significant staffing reductions, as the IRS workforce has fallen about 25 percent this year to roughly 75,000 employees.
Salesforce confirmed that the IRS will use Agentforce in the Office of Chief Counsel, Taxpayer Advocate Service and the Office of Appeals, initially for case summarization and search. Paul Tatum, executive vice president of global public sector solutions at Salesforce, said the move follows several years of modernization work focused on core platforms in those departments.
Government agencies have increasingly turned to AI systems to support administrative processes, but Tatum said in the Axios article that the company is emphasizing safeguards as the IRS adopts agent-based tools.
“Salesforce doesn’t advocate for a blind AI processing tax returns without a human being involved in reviewing and supplementing it,” he said.
He added that agent workflows include limits on decision-making authority, such as prohibiting agents from issuing final determinations or disbursing funds.
IRS officials said the technology is part of a broader modernization effort that began in 2023. Rob Fitzpatrick, senior level counsel for technology in the Office of Chief Counsel, said he was initially hesitant to use AI but now believes it is necessary to keep pace with the private sector.
The agency has not tied workforce changes directly to AI adoption, but officials described the shift to agent-supported processes as part of a long-term transition toward more efficient case handling.