Intercom AI agent: An in-depth 2025 guide

Support teams are feeling the pressure. Customers want fast, helpful answers at all hours, and ticket queues just keep growing. It’s no surprise that teams are turning to AI agents to automate support and give their human agents some breathing room. One of the biggest names you'll hear is the Intercom AI Agent, also known as Fin.

Fin is a pretty impressive tool, but is it the right one for your team? This guide gives you an honest look at its features, its slightly confusing pricing model, and a few major drawbacks you need to know about. We'll cover what it does well and where it might cause headaches. We’ll also show you a more flexible and cost-effective alternative that puts you in the driver's seat of your AI support.

What is the Intercom AI agent?

The Intercom AI Agent, or Fin, is Intercom's own AI chatbot designed to handle customer support conversations automatically. Think of it as a frontline support rep that never sleeps. It runs on powerful large language models, like Anthropic's Claude, which helps it understand what customers are really asking and provide detailed, conversational answers.

Its primary goal is to solve customer problems by pulling information from a company’s knowledge base. The idea is to reduce the number of tickets that your human agents have to deal with. It aims to do more than just deflect simple questions; it’s built to provide complete answers that feel natural.

You can use Fin in two ways: either as a native part of the Intercom Customer Service Suite or as a standalone agent that connects with other helpdesks like Zendesk or Salesforce. This gives you a bit of wiggle room if you’re not ready to move your entire helpdesk system over to Intercom.

Key features of the Intercom AI agent

Fin has a lot of features packed into it, all designed to make support automation feel like a natural part of your workflow. Here’s a rundown of what it can do.

Simple setup and onboarding

One of the big selling points for Fin is how easy it is to get started. Most users say the setup is straightforward and you don't need to be a developer to get it working. Since it's built right into the Intercom platform, the integration is pretty seamless, letting teams get a basic version up and running in no time.

High-quality answers and performance

Intercom has put a lot of work into making Fin's answers accurate. The company claims Fin can resolve up to 65% of queries, with a 51% resolution rate straight out of the box before you even start tweaking it. It’s designed to tackle complex questions with its "Fin AI Engine™," a system that interprets a user's question, finds the best content, and puts together a response it double-checks for accuracy. This is why Fin can often handle more than just basic FAQs.

A complete management system

Intercom pitches Fin as a full system you can manage without writing any code. It’s split into four main areas:

• Analyze: You get a bunch of reports and dashboards to see how Fin is doing. You can look at resolution rates, see what customers are asking about, and find weak spots in your help articles.

• Train: This is where you make the AI your own. You can adjust its tone of voice to match your brand, point it to your help docs, and set up rules for how it should act in different situations.

• Test: Before you let Fin talk to your customers, you can use its testing tools to see what its answers will look like. It even shows you which articles it used to come up with the answer, which helps you build confidence before going live.

• Deploy: Fin can be used almost anywhere you interact with customers, including live chat, email, SMS, Slack, and social media.

Custom actions and third-party integrations

Fin can do more than just answer questions. You can set it up to perform tasks, like updating a customer's account details or processing a refund. However, some users have mentioned that while the initial setup is simple, creating these custom actions can get pretty technical. The fact that it works with other helpdesks is a nice touch, giving it some flexibility if you’re not all-in on Intercom.

This video provides an overview of Fin, the Intercom AI Agent, and its capabilities for customer service.

Where the Intercom AI agent can get tricky

While Fin is a well-designed tool, it has some major limitations that can cause real problems for your budget and workflows.

The per-resolution pricing model

This is probably the biggest issue for most teams. Fin charges $0.99 per resolution. An interesting thing to note is how Intercom defines a "resolution." It's counted when a customer either clicks the "that resolved my issue" button or just stops replying after the AI's last message.

There are a couple of problems with this. First, as some users have noted, your support bill actually goes up as your AI performs better. The more tickets Fin successfully resolves, the more you pay. This makes your costs unpredictable and really hard to budget for. A busy support month could leave you with a surprisingly large bill. Second, counting a non-response as a resolution is questionable. A customer could have just gotten busy or given up, but you'd still get charged for a "resolved" ticket.

Limited access to your knowledge

This is a huge operational roadblock. Fin is built to work best with knowledge that’s stored in Intercom's own "Articles" help center. To get the most out of it, you’re basically pushed to move all of your documentation into their system.

But that’s not realistic for most companies. Your team’s knowledge is probably spread out across different tools: Google Docs for internal guides, Confluence for technical documentation, and Notion for project updates. Asking a team to pause everything for a massive content migration project just to turn on an AI agent is a tough sell. It’s a ton of work that just delays you from seeing any real benefit.

Less control over automation rules

While Fin gives you some customization options, you might find it a bit restrictive once you get past the basics. You may want more precise control over which tickets the AI handles or how it decides to escalate a conversation to a human. For teams that want to build out detailed, multi-step support flows, the default settings can feel a little rigid.

eesel AI: A more flexible way to automate Intercom support

If Fin’s downsides sound all too familiar, there’s a more flexible and straightforward alternative. eesel AI plugs right into your existing tools, including Intercom, and solves the biggest problems of unpredictable pricing and locked-in knowledge. It’s a platform designed for how modern support teams actually work.

Connect all your knowledge, not just Intercom Articles

The biggest headache with most built-in AI agents is that they can't access information where it already lives. With eesel AI, you don't have to move a single file. It securely connects to all of your team's knowledge sources in just a few clicks.

An infographic showing how eesel AI connects to various knowledge sources like Google Docs, Confluence, Notion, and Slack to train the AI agent.

Whether your info is in Google Docs, Confluence, Notion, Slack, or your past ticket history, eesel AI can learn from it. This means your AI agent gets trained on your team's real, current knowledge from day one, without any painful migration projects.

Ditch unpredictable costs with clear pricing

Instead of a confusing per-resolution fee, eesel AI offers simple, transparent plans based on a set number of monthly AI interactions. There are no per-resolution fees, so you never get penalized for your AI doing a good job. Your costs are flat and predictable, which lets you scale your support without worrying about a bill that blows up your budget. Plus, the flexible monthly plans can be canceled anytime, so it's a low-risk way to get started.

A screenshot of the eesel AI pricing page, showing clear, predictable monthly plans as an alternative to the Intercom AI agent's per-resolution model.

Go live in minutes with a true self-serve platform

eesel AI was built to be incredibly simple and self-serve. You can sign up, connect your helpdesk, add your knowledge sources, and launch a working AI agent in minutes, all without needing to book a demo or talk to a salesperson. The one-click integration with helpdesks like Intercom means there’s no complicated setup. It just fits right into your existing workflow without causing any disruption.

Test with confidence using powerful simulations

One of eesel AI's coolest features is its simulation mode. Before your AI agent talks to a single customer, you can run it on thousands of your past tickets. You get to see exactly how it would have replied, which gives you a realistic forecast of its resolution rate and helps you spot any gaps in your knowledge base. This risk-free testing lets you fine-tune everything and roll it out feeling completely confident.

A screenshot of the eesel AI simulation mode, where users can test the AI agent on past tickets to forecast its performance.

Intercom AI agent vs. eesel AI: A side-by-side look

Here’s a quick comparison of how Fin and eesel AI stack up on the things that matter most.

Feature	Intercom AI Agent (Fin)	eesel AI
Pricing Model	$0.99 per "resolution"	Predictable monthly fee (no per-resolution charges)
Knowledge Sources	Heavily prefers Intercom Articles	Connects to Confluence, Google Docs, Notion, Slack, etc.
Setup Process	Easy for basics, but custom actions can be technical	Self-serve, go live in minutes
Testing & Rollout	Basic preview and testing tools	Powerful simulation on past tickets for risk-free testing
Control	Standard configuration options	Full control over rules, actions, and AI personality

Take control of your Intercom support strategy

The Intercom AI Agent is a solid tool, especially for teams who are already deep in the Intercom world and have all their knowledge perfectly organized in Intercom Articles. It’s well-made, powerful, and easy to get started with.

But its rigid approach to knowledge sources and its unpredictable pricing are big hurdles that make it a tough choice for many businesses. For teams who need flexibility, more control, and costs that make sense, a tool like eesel AI is a much better fit.

You shouldn't have to change how your whole team works or accept a volatile bill just to get the benefits of AI. With the right platform, you can build an automated support system that works with your tools, your budget, and your team.

Ready to see how simple it is to launch an AI agent that uses your existing knowledge? Start your free eesel AI trial today and you can be live in just a few minutes.