How we became an AI-first company
And what we're looking forward to in 2025 as generative AI continues to evolve.
In the latest episode of the Intercom on Product podcast, Paul Adams, Intercom’s Chief Product Officer, and Des Traynor, our Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, sit down to discuss the impact of generative AI and where we’re at as 2024 comes to a close.
Throughout the year, we’ve spoken a lot about how AI is changing customer service and software in general. It has clearly redefined our product, as we built the leading AI agent for support, Fin, and the best AI-first customer service platform.
But how is it changing how we run the company? How is it shaping the way we build product, and the rituals we rely on to ship consistently innovative software? How is it forcing us to reconsider our strategy as the market for customer service products is rapidly disrupted?
This is what Des and Paul get into as they share a behind-the-scenes look at some of the ways generative AI has transformed Intercom’s internal thinking on these issues. They reflect on the technological revolution we’ve witnessed since ChatGPT’s launch, and the consequences for established product-led software companies like ours.
Here are five key takeaways from their discussion:
AI-augmented to AI-native
Des and Paul highlight the progression from early AI applications that performed isolated tasks – like summarizing content or assisting with customer inquiries – to AI-native products that fundamentally reshape categories.
Des argues that products designed from the ground up with AI at their core, rather than as an add-on, are driving the next wave of innovation. We’re seeing it up close with customer service, but the same trend will happen across industries.
Echoes of Facebook’s “mobile moment”
Our transformation to being an AI-first company recalls a similar moment from a previous technological revolution – Mark Zuckerberg’s decisive move to prioritize mobile at Facebook, a pivotal moment during the rise of smartphones.
Zuckerberg declared, "We are now a mobile company," mandating engineers to transition to mobile development, even blocking the desktop version internally to force mobile use. This bold shift met with resistance from some employees, but ultimately positioned Facebook to thrive in the mobile era.
How many companies are willing or able to undertake such aggressive adaptation during our current technological shift?
Why we launched Fin as a standalone AI agent
We recently made the bold decision to launch Fin for Platforms, an AI agent capable of operating on competitor help desk platforms such as Zendesk.
As Des explains, this move reflects a strategic shift toward prioritizing AI leadership over platform exclusivity. By offering Fin broadly, we aim to capture the growing demand for AI-driven customer support, show a willingness to disrupt traditional revenue models, and adapt to a future where AI agents are central to customer service.
The iPhone’s mixed reception
We all consider the iPhone as the most revolutionary technological device of the century, but it’s important to remember that it was met with some skepticism at the time.
Paul recalls how many folks at Google, where he worked at the time, doubted anyone would watch videos or do meaningful work on a phone, given its limitations compared to a BlackBerry.
This disbelief mirrors today’s hesitation about generative AI’s transformative power. Just as the iPhone revolutionized mobile usage despite early doubts, generative AI is poised to reshape industries. The lesson: new technologies often face resistance, but their disruptive potential is profound.
Second-order effects will determine the future
Anticipating the future impact of new technologies are complicated by the second- and third-order effects that arise – and are inevitably hard to predict. As Des and Paul point out, the transition from horses to cars reshaped infrastructure and society in all sorts of profound ways that nobody could have anticipated.
Similarly, AI’s influence will extend far beyond initial use cases, creating entirely new workflows, categories, and behaviors. The ripple effects are just beginning.
Thanks for reading through the year. We have lots more product-focused content in store for you in 2025. And as always, we love to hear what you think and what you’d like more of.
Have a happy festive season, and here’s to a prosperous new year! 🎉
What we’ve been up to
How we scaled engineering enablement and infrastructure at Intercom
At Intercom, we learned the hard way that simply picking a few “core” technologies isn’t enough to build on.
Without a clearly defined strategy for understanding these core technologies, guiding their use, and investing in the teams behind them, they can become a persistent source of friction that impacts both engineers and customers, leading to operational incidents.
In this talk, Ryan Sherlock, a Director of Engineering here at Intercom, walks through how we went from a patchwork of legacy systems and recurring incidents to a place where our infrastructure is stable, our product teams run faster, and the business moves more confidently.
He also unpacks how we defined a core technology team, the steps we took to learn and standardize our tooling, and the approaches we used to hire and grow the engineers who own it all.
If you’ve ever struggled with scaling foundational tech, this will give you the framework and momentum you need to turn chaos into something you can actually build on.
Calling all founders 📣
Join our Early Stage program to receive a 90% discount on Intercom's AI-powered support platform – which includes Fin, our game-changing AI bot capable of resolving half of your support volume, automatically. You’re in good company.
From the archive: Trajectory matters more than state
As we head into 2025, here's a timely reminder from our Co-founder Des Traynor: in business, what matters most isn't where you are now – it's where you're headed. It's a perfect perspective for the new year, when so many of us are focused on growth and improvement.
Drawing from his experience scaling Intercom, Des explains why long-term thinking matters in three critical business areas:
Hiring decisions: The candidate who's perfect for the role today might not be your best bet if their growth has plateaued. Instead, look for people with a strong track record of learning and expanding their capabilities.
Product quality: A product with 80 bugs today tells you very little – what matters is whether that number was 10 or 160 last month. The speed and direction of improvement is what truly counts.
Competitive analysis: That small competitor with a fraction of your revenue? If they're growing five times faster than you, they might not stay small for long.
While the current state is what customers experience today, trajectory is what determines your success tomorrow. So, whether you're assessing talent, measuring product quality, or sizing up competition, always ask yourself: "Which way is this going?"
Это нереально круто