Can you “vibe code” your own QuickBooks or TurboTax?

Go ahead, Alex Balazs said. He’s the CTO of Intuit, the parent company of those financial tools. If a business builds interfaces with any of the major LLM services, they can still tap Intuit’s tools for tasks like invoicing or tax services through integrations with those AI platforms.

Deals with the likes of Anthropic and OpenAI are part of how Intuit is rethinking its business for a post-SaaS-pocalyptic world. Like other business software platforms, Intuit’s stock has cratered this year amid an investor sell-off spurred by advances in coding and agentic AI tools.

We spoke with Balazs about what he thinks this narrative gets wrong, how Intuit is testing new pricing models, and how to market tax services to AI agents.

Keep reading.—PK

The war in Iran will have a noticeable impact on the global economy, according to recent estimates that a risk-aware CFO will find unsurprising.

In its latest World Economic Outlook released on Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund predicted global real GDP growth would slow to 3.1% this year, compared with 3.4% growth in 2024 and 2025. That’s 0.2 percentage points lower than the IMF’s previous estimate. The organization didn’t change its 2027 growth estimate of 3.2%.

“Absent the war [in the Middle East], global growth would have been revised upward,” the IMF noted. The conflict “presents a significant counterforce” to tailwinds like tech investments and a weaker US dollar, through its impact on commodity prices and inflation expectations, it added. Also noteworthy: The IMF made its predictions with the assumption “the conflict remains limited in duration and scope.”

Oxford Economics was even more pessimistic. In a research briefing released the same day, the organization called the IMF’s forecast “still too rosy.” Rather, it expects 2.9% global GDP growth in 2026. The economic forecasting and advisory firm noted that its more pessimistic view is “consistent with a higher oil price path than the IMF’s: we anticipate the Brent oil price averaging $90pb in 2026—about $10pb higher than the IMF assumes.”

Keep reading.—AZ

TL;DR: Microsoft released Recall to the public last April—an AI feature that captures your computer screen every few seconds. The release came with a promised security fix after months in previews, but a researcher just proved it’s still exploitable. It’s the latest entry in a long list of user grievances around AI and Windows 11, an OS that’s recently gained market share probably due more to Microsoft killing Windows 10 support than because anyone actually wanted it.

What happened: A cybersecurity researcher has shown that malware can silently extract hoards of data collected by Windows Recall—a supposedly convenient feature that periodically captures what you’re doing on your PC and uses AI to make it all searchable. (This can include anything you’re looking at on your screen, from bank account details to your most regrettable Google searches.) Backlash around its security initially delayed the feature’s launch, and it was released to the public last April with encrypted storage and biometric authentication. Apparently, that wasn’t enough.

The problem: Recall’s data usually sits locked in a secure vault, but malware can trigger Recall to unlock by prompting a real Windows security pop-up where users verify their identity. Once the vault opens, Recall hands your data off to a separate, unprotected process to display it on screen—and that’s when the malware intercepts it.

Keep reading on Tech Brew.—WK