OTTAWA \u2014 Experts in artificial intelligence say it\u2019s risky for the Canada Revenue Agency to turn to artificial intelligence to help Canadians with their tax problems when human call centre employees have shown to struggle providing accurate information.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, federal auditor general Karen Hogan issued a damning report which found not only was the CRA answering very few of the calls coming in, when it did pick up the phone, an accurate response was provided by a live agent to fewer than one in five callers about personal income taxes.<\/p>\n
Hogan found that Charlie, a rule-based artificial intelligence chatbot, offered correct information about one-third of time.<\/p>\n
Unlike generative AI which generates new content based on questions asked, Charlie provides answers from pre-determined scripts to assist in frequently asked questions and straightforward inquiries.<\/p>\n
The CRA is also piloting a generative AI version, and expanding its use of the chatbots by running them longer hours and expanding the number of questions they can answer.<\/p>\n
Anatoliy Gruzd, the Canada Research Chair in Privacy Preserving Digital Technologies, said the CRA needs to get it right with the people before it should rely on AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re a government agent, and you\u2019re launching a chatbot, you want to make sure that you have the process nailed down with the human agent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gruzd explained that chatbots depend on accurate data from human agents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think going back to the basics and trying to figure out why human agents get some of the answers wrong will be critical before launching any major AI initiatives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Adegboyega Ojo, a Carleton University professor who specializes in the governance in AI, said the technology can be better utilized, if developed carefully.<\/p>\n
Ojo researches technical mechanisms for safe and beneficial AI use in government, and said the CRA should use a mixed human-AI model. That would allow machines to answer frequently asked questions, while passing over more complex and nuanced queries to specialists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you talk about AI or not, if you are a public servant, you have to be well trained,\u201d Ojo said. \u201cBut, when you have complex tasks, that really requires a lot of cognitive load in terms of remembering things and knowing rules; this is why you need a machine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ojo says AI can ease the burden of high call volumes on CRA staff, but he stressed human workers stay essential and should not be replaced outright.<\/p>\n
\u201cChatbots can be the most sophisticated chatbots and agents today that can do planning, that can speed things up, and still get tripped up because they miss the context,\u201d said Ojo. \u201cI think the ideal way to deploy an AI system is to always have the human oversight, and that\u2019s where the accountability comes in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jasmin Manseau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa\u2019s Telfer School of Management, said contemporary AI handles predictive-based tasks better than judgment-based tasks, but argued there is still room for machine error.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it depends on the tasks, and something that is routine definitely can be automated, but arguably, not everything can be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said the government\u2019s use of AI is important for technological advancement, but says public trust is needed for success.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it is accurate and people trust it, then they\u2019ll use it, and they\u2019ll give better recommendations,\u201d said Manseau. \u201cWe need to reach this threshold where it\u2019s at an 70 per cent, 80 per cent, 90 per cent accuracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published October 25, 2025.<\/p>\n
Justin Escoto, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 Experts in artificial intelligence say it\u2019s risky for the Canada Revenue Agency to turn to artificial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-239361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}