Why AI is the future of customer service with Fergal Reid, Chief AI Officer at Intercom

What does it really take to build AI that can resolve customer
support at scale reliably, safely, and with measurable business
impact?


We explore how Intercom has evolved from a traditional customer
support platform into an AI-first company, with its AI assistant,
Fin, now resolving 65% of customer queries without human
intervention. Intercom's Chief AI Officer, Fergal Reid, discusses
the company's journey from natural language understanding (NLU)
systems to their current retrieval augmented generation (RAG)
approach, explaining how they've optimised every component of
their AI pipeline with custom-built models.


The conversation covers Intercom's unique approach to AI product
development, emphasising standardisation and continuous
improvement rather than customisation for individual clients.
Fergal explains their outcome-based pricing model, where clients
pay for successful resolutions rather than conversations, and how
this aligns incentives across the business.


We also discuss Intercom's approach to agentic AI, which enables
their systems to perform complex, multi-step tasks, such as
processing refunds, by integrating with various APIs. Fergal
shares insights on testing methodologies, the balance between
customisation and standardisation, and the challenges of building
AI products in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.


Finally, Fergal shares what excites and honestly freaks him out a
bit about where AI is heading next.



Timestamps

00:00 - Intro


02:31 - Welcome to Fergal Reid


05:26 - How to train an NLU solution effectively?


08:56 - What gen AI changed for Intercom


10:57 - How would you describe Fin?


14:30 - Fin’s performance increase


17:18 - Intercom’s custom models


22:14 - Large Language Models vs Small Language Models


30:40 - RAG and 'the full stop problem'


40:08 - Agentic AI capabilities at Intercom


50:40 - Intercom’s approach to testing


1:04:46 - About the most exciting things in the AI space



Show notes

Learn more about Intercom


Connect with Fergal Reid on LinkedIn


Follow Kane Simms on LinkedIn


Article - The full stop problem: RAG’s biggest limitation


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