Intercom has been a big name in customer communication for a while, but the recent boom in AI has changed the game. Their AI tool, a bot named Fin, aims to lighten the load on support teams with smart, human-like automation. For teams looking at their options in 2025, the real question isn’t just if AI can help, but which AI setup will make the biggest difference.
This guide gives you a straight-up look at the Intercom AI agent. We’ll get into what it does, how the pricing works, and, importantly, some of the limitations that might give you pause. We want to give you the information you need to decide if Intercom’s all-in-one approach is right for you, or if a more flexible solution would be a better fit for your team.
What is the Intercom AI agent?
So, what exactly is the Intercom AI agent, Fin? Think of it as a very smart chatbot. It’s powered by large language models (LLMs), like Anthropic’s Claude. Unlike older bots that just follow a strict script, Fin can understand the flow of a conversation, remember what was said earlier, and give natural-sounding answers.
Its main job is to solve customer problems on its own by looking through your company’s knowledge base. And it can be pretty effective. A case study from Anthropic showed Fin could resolve up to 86% of customer questions, cutting response times from several minutes down to just seconds. It’s a great example of what AI can do for a support team.
The thing is, this kind of automation isn’t just an Intercom-only feature anymore. While Intercom gives you a powerful tool inside their platform, there’s a trade-off: you have to run your whole support operation within their world. Modern tools like eesel AI offer similar (and often more powerful) AI features but with the freedom to connect to the tools you already know and love, saving you the headache and cost of switching everything over.
A closer look at Intercom AI agent features
To figure out if Fin is the right choice, you have to look past the sales pitch and see how it actually works. Here’s a breakdown of what it does well and where other, more flexible tools might have an edge.
How the Intercom AI agent learns from your knowledge
The Intercom AI agent learns from the information you give it. This includes articles from your Intercom Help Center, internal documents, PDFs, and any public websites you link it to. You can also use features like "Fin Guidance" to set rules for how it should behave and "Content Targeting" to give different answers to different types of customers.
The potential issue here is pretty straightforward: this setup works best if all your important information is already in Intercom or can be easily moved there. For most companies, that’s not the case. Knowledge is usually spread out all over the place, like internal guides in Confluence, project details in Google Docs, and years of customer conversations in other helpdesks. An AI bot that can’t see all of that information is going to give incomplete answers, which can leave customers frustrated and create more work for your human agents.
This is where a different approach, like the one from eesel AI, comes in handy. It’s built to work in the real world, where information is messy and spread out. It acts as a layer on top of your existing tools instead of making you replace them. It connects to dozens of sources and can even learn from your past tickets in Zendesk, Freshdesk, and other platforms, making sure it has the full story.
How the Intercom AI agent measures performance
Intercom gives you a few reporting tools, like the Fin Performance report and the new CX Score. These dashboards show you things like resolution rates and customer satisfaction in real time, but only for the conversations that happen inside Intercom.
While these reports are helpful, they come with a catch: you can’t really know how well the AI will do until after you’ve already launched it. This is where eesel AI offers a huge advantage with its simulation feature. Before you go live, you can test the AI on your past support tickets in a safe, private environment. This gives you a clear, data-driven forecast of how it will perform, how accurate it will be, and how much money it could save you. This "try before you fly" approach takes the risk out of the whole process and lets you move forward with confidence.
How you deploy the Intercom AI agent
Fin can be used across multiple channels, including live chat, email, and Slack, and they’re planning to add voice support. On the surface, that sounds great, but it hides the biggest challenge of using their AI.
To get the most out of the Intercom AI agent, you have to go all-in with their platform. This means moving your entire support system, your helpdesk, your team, your workflows, over to Intercom. It’s a huge project that takes a lot of time, money, and can disrupt your whole company.
The alternative is to use a "layered" approach. eesel AI is designed to plug directly into the helpdesk you already use, whether it’s Zendesk, Freshdesk, Jira Service Management, or another tool. It keeps your existing workflows, custom fields, and reports intact. You get all the power of a top-tier AI agent without the pain of migrating.
What does the Intercom AI agent cost?
Intercom’s pricing for its AI has two parts, and you need to understand both to get the full picture of the cost.
- A Required Subscription: You can’t just buy the AI tool by itself. You first have to sign up for one of Intercom’s helpdesk plans (Essential, Advanced, or Expert). These plans are priced per agent, costing between $29 to $132 per person per month if you pay for the year upfront.
- A Pay-Per-Use Fee: On top of that subscription, you pay $0.99 for every resolution. A "resolution" is counted anytime a customer says their problem is solved or when they stop asking for help after Fin’s last message.
While paying only when it works sounds reasonable, this "per-resolution" model can make budgeting tricky. Your costs could jump unexpectedly if you have a busy month or a new product launch, leaving you with a much higher bill than you planned for. For teams that need to keep a close eye on their spending, this unpredictability can be a real problem.
On the other hand, eesel AI’s pricing is designed to be predictable. Instead of a fluctuating per-resolution cost, eesel AI plans come with a large number of monthly AI interactions (which includes both AI replies and automated actions) for a simple, flat monthly fee. This lets your team use the AI more without worrying about costs spiraling out of control. Plus, every eesel AI plan includes their full set of tools, AI Agent, AI Copilot, AI Triage, and more, in a single package. With Intercom, tools like their AI Copilot often cost extra, adding to the overall expense.
| Aspect | Intercom AI Agent | eesel AI |
|---|---|---|
| Base Cost | Per-seat subscription ($29–$132/mo per agent) | Flat monthly fee (starts at $239/mo for up to 3 bots) |
| Usage Cost | $0.99 per resolution (pay-as-you-go) | Monthly bundle of AI interactions (replies + actions) |
| Cost Predictability | Low to Medium (changes with ticket volume) | High (fixed cost for a predictable number of interactions) |
| Platform Requirement | You must migrate to the Intercom platform | Layers right on top of your current helpdesk |
| Product Access | AI Agent only; Copilot is a paid add-on | Full suite included (Agent, Copilot, Triage, etc.) |
A few key things to think about before choosing the Intercom AI agent
Putting it all together, here are the final questions every support leader should ask before signing up for Intercom’s AI.
The real cost of being locked-in with the Intercom AI agent
The main thing to think about with the Intercom AI agent is that you’re tying your entire support team to their platform. This lack of flexibility can create problems down the road. What if your business needs change? What if you want to use another great tool that doesn’t connect well with Intercom? Being locked into one vendor can hold you back and leave you stuck with a system that doesn’t quite fit anymore.
Can the Intercom AI agent handle complex, real-world tasks?
Intercom is working on a feature called "Tasks" that will let Fin take action, but it’s still pretty new, especially for tasks that need to happen outside of Intercom. By comparison, eesel AI’s "AI Actions" are already a core part of their product. It can look up live data in systems like Shopify, check on an order status, or start a process through an API call. This means it can handle much more complicated, real-world tasks right from the start.
The Intercom AI agent: One general agent vs. a team of specialists
Intercom’s "one-size-fits-all" approach gives you a single AI agent that’s mainly built for customer support questions. But most companies have different needs in different departments. This is where having multiple bots, a key idea behind eesel AI, really shines. You can create and use several specialized AI agents, one for Support that learns from tickets, another for IT that learns from Confluence documents, and a third for HR that learns from policy PDFs. Each bot works with its own secure set of knowledge, which leads to more accurate, secure, and helpful answers across the whole company.
Conclusion: Is the Intercom AI agent the right choice for 2025?
There’s no doubt the Intercom AI agent is a solid tool for teams that are already all-in on the Intercom platform or are ready to make a complete switch. It delivers good, automated support and can make a big difference for the right kind of user.
However, for most businesses that want to stay flexible, keep costs predictable, and improve their current way of working, being locked into one vendor with a fluctuating price tag are serious downsides. The future of AI in support isn’t about giant platforms that demand you use only their tools. It’s about flexible, layered solutions that help teams without causing a huge disruption.
If you want the power of an AI agent without the pain of switching your helpdesk, you might want to look at a platform built for flexibility from the start. eesel AI layers on top of the tools you already use, connects to all your scattered knowledge, and offers a clear, predictable path to automation.
Book a demo today to see how you can get up and running in minutes, not months.
Frequently asked questions
You pay in two ways: a required monthly per-agent subscription for the Intercom helpdesk platform, plus a pay-as-you-go fee of $0.99 for every successful resolution. This means your total cost can change each month depending on your ticket volume.
Yes, for the most part. The agent is designed to work deeply within the Intercom ecosystem, so using it effectively requires you to adopt their platform for your helpdesk, knowledge base, and team workflows.
It primarily learns from the content you provide within the Intercom platform, like your Intercom Help Center articles, uploaded documents, and public URLs you connect. Its knowledge is limited to the sources you can integrate directly into Intercom.
Intercom is developing this capability with a feature called “Tasks,” but it’s still new for actions outside their platform. Alternative tools may offer more advanced, out-of-the-box integrations for performing complex actions in external systems like Shopify or Jira.
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