We’ve all had that moment. You pop open a website's chat bubble with a simple question and get hit with a flat, robotic "How can I help you?" The whole conversation feels a bit cold and generic, and honestly, a little frustrating. Even if the bot gets you the answer, the experience can make a company feel distant.
This is exactly why giving your AI a personality isn't just a fun gimmick, it's key to creating a customer experience that feels consistent and trustworthy. Your AI agent is often the first point of contact, so it really ought to sound like it’s part of your team.
In this guide, we'll get into what Fin Identities are, explore what they can and can't do, and show you how to go beyond basic presets to build an AI personality that feels like a natural extension of your brand.
What are Fin Identities?
Fin Identities are a feature inside Intercom's AI Agent, Fin, that lets you change up the bot's appearance and personality. The goal is to get away from the one-size-fits-all chatbot and create something that feels a bit more like you.
It’s a decent starting point, offering a few things you can tweak:
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Name: You can swap out the default "Fin" for something more on-brand, like "Acme Helper" or whatever you come up with.
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Avatar: You can upload a custom profile picture, whether it's your company logo or a friendly illustration.
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Tone of Voice: This is the main personality setting. You get to choose from a short, predefined list of tones, usually something like Friendly, Professional, Humorous, or Matter-of-fact.
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Answer Length: You can also tell the bot how chatty to be by picking between Concise, Standard, or Thorough answers.
These settings give you some basic control over how your AI comes across. It's a nice first step toward personalization, but as we'll see, it really only scratches the surface of what's needed to create a truly authentic experience.
Why your AI's personality matters
Just think of your AI agent as a new team member on the front lines. For a lot of customers, it's the first "face" of your company they'll ever interact with. A well-defined and consistent AI identity isn't just a nice extra; it has a real impact on your business.
First off, it builds trust. When an AI's tone matches your brand, the whole interaction feels more authentic and less like you're just talking to a machine. This helps customers feel more comfortable from the get-go. A playful, fun brand probably shouldn't have a bot that sounds like a stern librarian, and a high-end financial service shouldn't be dropping slang.
It also keeps your brand consistent. Every time a customer interacts with your company, whether it's with a person or an AI, it should feel like the same company. When the voice and style are all over the place, it creates a weird, disjointed experience that can make your brand feel less professional.
A personalized interaction just feels more helpful. It shows you've put thought into the entire customer journey, not just the technical bits. That kind of attention to detail is what leads to happier customers who stick around.
Finally, a clear persona manages expectations. It helps customers understand that they're talking to a capable AI that’s part of your support team, not just a glorified search bar for your FAQs.
You wouldn't let a new support agent start talking to customers without showing them the ropes and explaining your communication style. Your AI deserves the same treatment.
How to customize Fin Identities (and where you'll hit a wall)
Changing these basic settings in Intercom is pretty simple. But going through the process also makes the limits of a pre-packaged personality really clear.
The basics of Fin Identities: Name, avatar, and tone
Inside your Fin settings, you can find the identity section to change the bot's name, upload an avatar, and pick a tone from a dropdown menu. It's all very user-friendly, letting you make these surface-level changes in just a few clicks. You can even preview how the different tones sound before you go live.
The limits of pre-set personalities
While it’s easy to use, this approach gets restrictive fast, especially for any brand with a distinct voice. Picking from a short list of generic tones often isn't enough, and here’s why:
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The tones are just too generic. A handful of options like "Friendly" or "Professional" can't capture the small details of a specific brand voice. What if your brand is "reassuringly technical," "confidently quirky," or "calmly empathetic"? You have to pick the closest fit, which usually just feels a little... off.
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The identity is only skin deep. The personality you choose doesn't change what the AI can actually do. You can't tell it to perform certain tasks, look up info from other tools, or handle escalations differently based on its persona. It's a superficial layer that doesn't really affect the bot's core abilities.
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There's no room for nuance. The tone is applied to every single conversation, no matter the context. You can't easily tweak it for different situations, like using a more empathetic tone for a frustrated customer versus a quick, direct tone for a simple password reset.
For your AI to truly align with your brand, you need a system that lets you define its entire communication style, how it thinks, and what it does.
The eesel AI alternative: Total control over your AI's identity and actions
This is where a more advanced platform like eesel AI really changes things. Instead of forcing you into pre-set boxes, it gives you the tools to build an AI agent that’s a true extension of your brand in both what it says and what it does.
Crafting a unique personality with a flexible prompt editor
Instead of picking a tone from a list, eesel AI has a powerful prompt editor. This is where you define your AI's exact personality, rules, and voice using plain English. It gives you complete control to create a persona that perfectly matches your brand.
For example, you could write a prompt like this:
"You are 'SupportBot 3000,' a helpful and efficient assistant for our SaaS company. Your tone is professional, clear, and slightly enthusiastic. Use emojis sparingly. Never apologize unless the user is clearly frustrated. If you don't know an answer, say 'That's a great question. Let me check our internal documentation for you.'"
You just can't get that level of detail from a dropdown menu. You can guide everything from its vocabulary and sentence structure to how it handles escalations.
Giving your AI custom actions and unified knowledge
A real AI identity is defined by what it can do, not just what it says. With eesel AI, you can give your agent custom actions that plug directly into your workflows. It can look up order details from Shopify, check a subscription status, or create a new ticket in Jira Service Management.
Its identity is also built on a foundation of your company's actual knowledge. eesel AI learns from all of your sources, like past support tickets, internal wikis on Confluence, and documents in Google Docs. This gives its personality real depth and makes sure its answers are consistently accurate and on-brand.
Testing your AI's identity with risk-free simulations
Launching a new AI persona without testing it is a bit of a gamble. How will it respond to an angry customer? Will its jokes land correctly?
eesel AI’s simulation mode lets you safely test your new AI identity on thousands of your past support tickets. You can see exactly how it would have responded in real-life situations, giving you clear data on its performance, tone, and resolution rate before it ever talks to a live customer. This is a huge contrast to platforms where the only way to test is to launch and cross your fingers.
A quick look at pricing: Intercom (Fin) vs. eesel AI
Pricing is another area where the approaches to AI are pretty different.
Intercom Pricing:
Intercom's model can get complicated. You often pay a base platform fee, a fee for each agent seat, and extra charges for AI features. Sometimes, you're even billed per resolution. This can lead to unpredictable monthly bills that go up as your team grows or when you have a busy support month.
| Intercom Plan | Key Features for AI | Pricing Model |
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| Pro | Fin AI Agent, Custom Bots | Starts at $74/seat/month (annually) + Platform Fee + Add-ons |
| Premium | Advanced AI capabilities | Custom Pricing |
eesel AI Pricing:
eesel AI's pricing is much more straightforward. Plans are based on a flat monthly fee that includes a generous number of AI interactions (an interaction is just a reply or an action). The best part is that there are no per-resolution or per-seat fees. Your costs stay predictable, so you can scale your support without stressing about surprise charges.
| eesel AI Plan | Monthly Price (Billed Annually) | AI Interactions/mo | Key Identity Features | | --- | --- | --- | | Team | $239 | Up to 1,000 | Custom prompts, All integrations | | Business | $639 | Up to 3,000 | Everything in Team + AI Actions, Bulk Simulation Mode |
Move from a generic identity to a true brand ambassador
Customizing your AI's identity isn't really optional anymore; it's just good business. While basic tools like Fin Identities offer a place to start, their pre-set options are too limiting for brands that care about consistency, control, and a genuinely good customer experience.
To really own your AI, you need to be able to customize its personality with flexible prompts, expand what it can do with custom actions and unified knowledge, and have solid tools for testing it safely.
Stop settling for a bot that just has a new profile picture. It's time to build an AI agent that is a true ambassador for your brand.
Ready to build an AI agent that actually represents your brand? See how eesel AI gives you total control over your AI's identity, actions, and knowledge. Start your free trial or book a demo today.
Frequently asked questions
Fin Identities are a feature within Intercom's AI agent, Fin, allowing you to change its appearance and personality. They enable basic customization such as altering the bot's name, uploading an avatar, choosing a predefined tone of voice, and setting the answer length. This helps move away from generic chatbots towards a more personalized customer experience.
A consistent AI personality, even through Fin Identities, helps build customer trust and maintain brand consistency. It ensures every customer interaction feels authentic and professional, managing expectations and ultimately contributing to a more helpful and satisfying customer journey.
The main customization options include changing the AI agent's name, uploading a custom avatar (like a company logo), selecting from a predefined list of tones (e.g., Friendly, Professional), and choosing an answer length (Concise, Standard, or Thorough). These settings allow for basic control over the AI's presentation.
Fin Identities offer generic tones that often can't capture a brand's specific voice, making the identity feel superficial. The chosen personality doesn't affect the AI's capabilities or actions. Furthermore, there's no flexibility to nuance the tone for different conversational contexts or customer emotions.
No, the tone you select within Fin Identities is applied consistently to every conversation, regardless of context. This means the system lacks the ability to automatically adjust its communication style to be more empathetic with a frustrated customer or more direct for a simple request.
eesel AI offers a powerful prompt editor for precise personality definition, allowing for detailed control over tone, rules, and vocabulary using plain English. It also provides custom actions that integrate with workflows and learns from unified company knowledge, giving the AI deeper functionality beyond just superficial changes.
Intercom's pricing can be complex and unpredictable, often involving base platform fees, per-agent seat charges, and additional fees for AI features or even per-resolution billing. This can lead to variable monthly costs that increase with team growth or higher support volumes.
