Kansas’s “Agent Kay”: Making Taxes Less Taxing

​New enhancements to Kansas WebFile, the Kansas Individual Income Tax Filing application, have once again secured bragging rights for the State of Kansas. On Jan 14, Kansas Information Consortium, LLC (KIC) announced the integration of Agent Kay, the state’s official chatbot, into Kansas WebFile, marking the first instance of an artificial intelligence chatbot supporting a state tax filing system.

Kansas WebFile users can message ‘Agent Kay’ with conversational questions and receive answers to tax-related questions, allowing users to quickly get the help they need. Agent Kay also guides citizens through a series of questions, aimed at quickly and easily providing the information they need.

Launched on June 21, 2018, Agent Kay is the official chatbot of the State of Kansas. Chatbots are computer programs that mimic human conversation by using artificial intelligence and machine learning. Incorporating chatbots into government technology provides exciting new avenues for modernizing the delivery of digital services to the citizens of Kansas.

“From the launch in 2018, Agent Kay has dramatically enhanced our ability to assist the citizens of Kansas,” said Nolan Jones, General Manager of KIC. “Now, Agent Kay will help citizens complete their simple tax filings faster than ever.”

WebFile was originally launched in 2002 as a partnership between the Information Network of Kansas and the Kansas Department of Revenue. In addition to incorporating Agent Kay, significant enhancements were made to Kansas WebFile for the 2018 tax year, the most significant being the ability to file taxes from a mobile device. A streamlined workflow allows most users to complete a simple filing in 10 minutes.

The development and maintenance of Agent Kay and Kansas WebFile are performed by KIC as a service of the Information Network of Kansas, Inc. (INK). Under INK’s and KIC’s public-private partnership, eGovernment services are delivered through a self-funded model, which does not utilize taxpayer funds.