Intuit QuickBooks and FCB's latest global campaign is reminiscent of one of those moments when technology leaves the realm of abstraction and lands who knows where – in real life.
As I watched the team connect real entrepreneurs with AI-powered storytelling, I wondered: Is this finally the era where small businesses are given tools that actually reduce the burden on the business?
The campaign struggles with this, and it's kind of refreshing. In the work presented on the website you can see how the concept is developing Bizcommunity feature.
What's special about this campaign is that it shows business owners in all their daily chaos – late invoices, messy schedules, endless admin – before they start dreaming about what will happen when artificial intelligence shows up to quietly help.
These “AI verticals,” as the team calls them, combine live action with digitally enhanced environments.
One scene immerses a ski shop owner in the high-altitude slopes, another drops the filmmaker into the digital world of pirates, and both are designed to demonstrate in one minute how QuickBooks uses artificial intelligence to keep everything running smoothly behind the scenes.
Read more about their approach from the creative teams at FCB New York and FCB London in the same article Business Community Report.
However, the visuals are only part of it. What's particularly noteworthy, however, is how QuickBooks positions its AI as something of a set of behind-the-curtain workers supporting small businesses.
Their platform provides AI-powered agents that handle accounting, project management, debriefing, and follow-up – all the things no one really likes to do.
The way Intuit describes it in their latest press release, it appears that they intend to give business owners back a part of their lives, as described below in their own press release at Intuitive website for investors.
And honestly, it seems like we're long overdue for this type of integration. Since too many AI chats seem to degenerate into copywriting or the new trendy “best tools” list, it's really refreshing to have something grounded in real operations – existing numbers, real admin, the rough everyday stuff that can save or break a small business.
If you're interested in how other brands are currently playing with AI-powered storytelling, check out the latest featured campaign (Coca-Cola update) serves as an interesting point of comparison, particularly in the way it illustrates how brands are now combining their creative talent with AI-powered manufacturing.
What I personally appreciate about QuickBooks' approach is that it doesn't try to oversell AI as magic.
Instead, Bai Lu treats the AI as a helpful collaborator – someone who cheerfully never complains, never sleeps, and never seems to confuse bills with expenses. Is it perfect? Probably not.
But if it gives entrepreneurs even a little respite, it's an achievement worth talking about.
