Intercom went from skeptics to believers on AI

Brian Scanlan, Senior Principal Engineer at Intercom, shares how the company transitioned from AI skepticism to embracing AI as a core strategy, particularly in customer support, after experimenting with GPT technology. Initially dismissing GPT as a fad, Intercom found that integrating it with their customer support data led to a dramatic improvement in AI-generated responses. Their AI agent, Fin, now resolves 86% of customer conversations in some deployments without human intervention, showcasing the effectiveness of large language models (LLMs) in retrieving and synthesizing information from help articles. This shift means human agents can focus on complex, relationship-building tasks, enhancing both customer satisfaction and the quality of work for support teams. Intercom has since made a significant investment in AI, reorganizing their engineering and product teams around AI capabilities, and has signed over 40,000 Fin customers, indicating the success of their strategic pivot.