A complete guide to the Intercom AI assistant in 2025

If you’re managing a support team, you’ve probably heard the term "AI" more times than you can count this year. AI-powered customer service isn’t some far-off concept anymore; it’s quickly becoming the standard. For modern teams, using AI is less about being trendy and more about keeping up with customer expectations without burning out your agents.

Intercom has jumped into this space with a set of AI tools meant to automate support and help agents work smarter. But with all the options out there, is it the right one for your team?

This guide will give you a straight-talking, in-depth look at the Intercom AI assistant. We’ll break down its main products, what they actually do, how to set them up, and the details of its pricing. The goal is to give you the full picture so you can decide if Intercom’s AI is the best move for your business.

What is the Intercom AI assistant?

First off, the "Intercom AI assistant" isn’t a single tool. Think of it as a bundle of AI features built into their customer service platform. To really get it, you need to know about its two main parts:

• Fin AI Agent: This is the bot your customers will talk to. It’s your digital front line, built to give instant answers and solve common problems on its own. The idea is to deflect all those repetitive questions that clog up your support queue.

• Copilot: This is the internal assistant for your human agents, living inside the Intercom Inbox. Its job is to make your team faster and more consistent by helping them write replies, get the gist of long conversations, and handle tedious tasks.

The difference is pretty simple: Fin talks to customers, and Copilot helps your agents. Together, they form Intercom’s vision for an "AI-first" support world.

A screenshot of the Intercom AI Copilot in action, illustrating the main components of the Intercom AI assistant.

A closer look at the key Intercom AI assistant features

To figure out if this platform is a good fit, you have to look under the hood at what Fin and Copilot can do. They each have some cool capabilities, but they also have their limits.

Fin: The customer-facing agent in the Intercom AI assistant

Fin is designed to handle a big slice of your support tickets without a human ever getting involved. It works 24/7 on channels like live chat and email, and Intercom claims it can resolve a high percentage of common questions. It does this by scanning your public help center, internal documents, and other connected knowledge sources to come up with answers.

But here’s the thing about Fin, its value is tied to a tricky pricing model. Intercom charges $0.99 for every single resolution the bot completes. This means the more work Fin does for you, the higher your bill gets. For teams with a lot of support tickets, this can lead to some surprisingly high and unpredictable costs month after month.

A view of the customer-facing Fin agent, a key feature of the Intercom AI assistant.

Copilot: The internal Intercom AI assistant for agents

Copilot is like an AI sidekick for your support agents, working behind the scenes to make their jobs a little easier. Its main tasks are:

• Summarizing long, complicated conversation histories in a snap.

• Composing new replies or tweaking existing ones to match your company’s tone.

• Autofilling ticket information to cut down on manual data entry.

One of its neatest tricks is its ability to learn from your team’s past conversations. It turns your support history into a knowledge source, helping it generate suggestions that are actually relevant and in context.

The catch? Copilot is stuck inside the Intercom Inbox. This makes it a non-starter for teams who aren’t using Intercom’s full helpdesk. If you’re happy with your current tools, you’re out of luck. For those teams, a tool that bundles a powerful AI Agent and an AI Copilot into one platform, like eesel AI, can offer a more flexible solution without making you switch your entire support setup.

Intercom AI assistant workflows and automation

Intercom also gives you a visual workflow builder to automate things like routing tickets, assigning them to the right people, and handling escalations. It’s a handy no-code tool for setting up simple automations to keep your inbox organized.

However, if you’re the kind of team that loves to tinker and needs full control, you might find it a bit limiting. Some platforms, like eesel AI, offer a more detailed and customizable workflow engine. You can build your own custom actions and API calls yourself, giving you complete say over how your AI behaves, from looking up order details to updating ticket fields, all without having to schedule a call with sales.

The visual workflow builder is a core part of the Intercom AI assistant's automation capabilities.

Getting the Intercom AI assistant set up and integrated

Intercom gives you two main ways to get started. You can either go all-in with their Intercom Suite or use their standalone AI agent, Fin, which can connect with helpdesks like Zendesk or Salesforce.

While having a standalone option sounds flexible, the whole system is really built to nudge you toward moving everything over to the Intercom helpdesk. This "rip and replace" approach can cause a lot of headaches for teams who like their current tools and just want to add some AI muscle.

This is where a simpler, integration-first approach really stands out. A tool like eesel AI is built to be "radically self-serve", letting you get up and running in minutes, not months. With one-click integrations for helpdesks like Zendesk, Freshdesk, and even Intercom itself, you can drop powerful AI right into the workflow you already use.

There’s also a big difference in how you can test things out. With Intercom, you’re pretty much forced to test and adjust your AI while it’s live with customers, which can feel a bit risky. In contrast, eesel AI’s "powerful simulation mode" lets you safely test your setup on thousands of your past tickets. You can see exactly how your AI agent would have performed and get solid numbers on resolution rates and cost savings before a single customer ever talks to it.

The difference in approach is night and day, one feels like a leap of faith, the other feels like a calculated step.

A powerful simulation mode is a key differentiator for alternatives to the Intercom AI assistant.

Understanding Intercom AI assistant pricing

Intercom’s pricing structure has a few layers and can be a bit confusing, so it’s important to know what you’re getting into. The cost is split between a base price for each agent seat and that variable fee for every AI resolution.

Plan	Base Price (per seat/mo, annual)	Fin AI Resolution Fee	Key Features
Essential	$29	+ $0.99 per resolution	Shared inbox, Help Center
Advanced	$85	+ $0.99 per resolution	Workflows, Multiple inboxes
Expert	$132	+ $0.99 per resolution	SLAs, Multibrand support
Fin AI Agent Only	N/A (50 resolution minimum)	$0.99 per resolution	Integrates with existing helpdesk

The big challenge with the Intercom AI assistant: Unpredictable per-resolution fees

The biggest headache with this model is that "$0.99 per resolution" fee, which you pay on top of your monthly seat price. This can make budgeting a real challenge because your bill is tied directly to your support volume and how well the AI is doing. A busy month, a seasonal rush, or a successful new product launch can send your bill soaring with little warning.

In a way, this model ends up penalizing you for successfully automating your support. The better your AI works, the more you pay.

The predictable alternative: eesel AI’s transparent pricing

A more modern, flat-rate approach offers a clear alternative. eesel AI’s pricing is based on the features you need and your overall interaction volume, with no per-resolution fees. You get a bill you can actually predict every month, which makes planning and budgeting much easier.

The benefits of this kind of model are pretty clear:

• Predictable costs: You know exactly what you’ll owe each month. No surprises.

• Scalability: You aren’t punished for having a high-performing AI that solves thousands of customer issues.

• Flexibility: eesel AI offers month-to-month plans you can cancel anytime, which is a nice change from the long-term annual contracts some platforms require.

This kind of transparency and predictability is what most businesses need to grow confidently.

Transparent, flat-rate pricing models offer a predictable alternative to the Intercom AI assistant's per-resolution fees.

Is the Intercom AI assistant right for you?

Intercom has a powerful, polished AI solution that can definitely add value, especially for teams who are already using its helpdesk and are deep in that ecosystem. The tools look good and can certainly make your team more efficient.

However, the downsides are pretty significant: a pricing model that can get complicated and expensive, and an integration process that feels like it’s pushing you to adopt their entire product suite. For a lot of teams, those are understandable deal-breakers.

If you care about predictable costs, a setup process that works with the tools you already have, and the ability to test everything without risk, then a more flexible and transparent alternative is probably a better fit. For teams that want to invest in AI without gambling on their budget or being forced into a new tech stack, a solution like eesel AI is built to solve these exact problems. It gives you powerful, customizable AI that works with you, not against your bottom line.

This demo video provides a closer look at how the Intercom AI assistant and its Copilot can improve team efficiency.