A Claude AI Outage on Tax Day? No Way!?

Honestly, we can't say we are surprised with the Claude AI outages on Tax Day with things like the Turbo Tax Connector. Technology has been moving quickly. Some spreadsheets that used to feel state of the art to us now look like dinosaurs, and we have replaced them with newer workflows — sometimes with the help of AI.

Every time we scroll on social media, we see some cheesy ad staged as a podcast interview talking about how this one specific software changed their life and now the business owner can vacation 24/7 while AI just handles everything. While we would be totally onboard with this scenario, it just isn't true. AI has given us a great deal of tools and uses to make our day-to-day more efficient. However, we have yet to find a process we can give it that doesn't require our constant oversight to ensure things are done correctly.

And honestly? That tracks. Because running a small business has never really been about finding the magic tool that does everything for you. It's about finding the right tools that make you better at what you do. A hammer doesn't build a house — the person swinging it does.

AI is no different. We've used it to draft communications faster, organize information, brainstorm ideas when we're stuck, and work through problems from a different angle. Real time-savers. But every single output still gets a human set of eyes before it goes anywhere. Not because the technology isn't impressive — it genuinely is — but because the stakes of getting things wrong in business are real. A missed detail, a wrong assumption, a tone that doesn't sound like us — those things matter.

So when Claude went down on Tax Day of all days, we had to laugh a little. Because it was a good reminder that tools are tools. They go down. They have limits. They occasionally pick the worst possible moment to be unavailable. Sound familiar? Kind of like any other vendor, platform, or piece of software we've all come to rely on.

The businesses that are going to get the most out of AI aren't the ones chasing the fantasy of full automation. They're the ones treating it like what it actually is — a really capable assistant that still needs direction, context, and a solid review before anything goes out the door.

We're still learning, still experimenting, and still occasionally yelling at a chatbot. If you're in the same boat, you're probably doing it right.