‘If technology can do more of that retrieval and cross-referencing, our revenue officers can spend more of their time examining what the authorities mean, resolving difficult issues, and carrying reforms through.’
Bureau of Internal Revenue personnel can enjoy a hassle-free taxation job, as the BIR and Ayala Corporation launched ‘Terry’, a Tax AI Assistant designed to help BIR employees retrieve, cross-reference, and analyze tax regulations, rulings, BIR issuances, and related tax materials more efficiently.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), led by Commissioner Charlito Martin Mendoza, and Ayala Corporation, represented by Karl Kendrick Chua, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Group Head, signed a Memorandum of Agreement on 25 August.
“For the BIR, the value of AI is not simply that it can give us answers faster. It is whether it can help our people find and verify the right authorities, make sound and defensible decisions, and move tax cases and reforms forward sooner,” Commissioner Mendoza said.
The partnership combines the Bureau’s institutional knowledge of taxation with Ayala’s capabilities in data science and artificial intelligence to develop a tool responsive to the BIR’s actual needs, and includes knowledge transfer to help the BIR institutionalize ‘Terry’.
“Ayala is honored to partner with the BIR in advancing AI in tax service and compliance. Through Terry, the Tax AI Assistant, we aim to help public servants work efficiently, respond to taxpayers with clarity and consistency, and deliver faster, more accessible services. By working together, we can build public institutions that are more responsive, capable, and prepared for the future,” Chua said.
Under the six-month collaboration, Ayala will work with BIR to set up Terry at no cost to the BIR, while Bureau personnel will participate in its testing, validation, refinement, and knowledge-transfer activities.
The project will build a structured and searchable knowledge base and develop citation-based, source-grounded responses using official BIR references.
“If technology can do more of that retrieval and cross-referencing, our revenue officers can spend more of their time examining what the authorities mean, resolving difficult issues, and carrying reforms through. The technology can help assemble the basis for a decision. But the judgment — and the responsibility for acting on it — remains solely ours,” Commissioner Mendoza said.
The Tax AI Assistant Terry project supports the Digital and Data Transformation and Employee Empowerment pillars of BIR DARES, combining technology to improve the quality and speed of work with the development of BIR personnel who will work with, test, and refine the technology.
“The real value of this partnership is not only the tool we will have at the end, but the capability we build within the BIR to understand the technology and continue developing it as our needs evolve,” Mendoza said.
