A practical guide to Intercom macros in 2025

Let’s be honest, some days in customer support feel like you’re stuck on a hamster wheel. You clock in, open your queue, and there they are: "Where's my order?" "How do I reset my password?" "Can I get a refund?" You find yourself typing out the same response for the tenth time before you've even finished your morning coffee.

These questions are important, of course, but they're not the reason you got into support. They're the repetitive tasks that get in the way of solving the really juicy, complex problems that require your brainpower.

For a lot of teams using Intercom, this is where Intercom macros come to the rescue. They’re a fantastic first step for handling common questions and making your workflow feel a bit less like Groundhog Day. But they're just that, a first step.

In this guide, we'll walk through what Intercom macros are, how to get the most out of them, and, critically, where they fall short. Then, we’ll look at how modern AI picks up where macros leave off, unlocking a level of automation that feels a whole lot smarter.

What are Intercom macros?

Think of Intercom macros (sometimes called saved replies) as your personal shortcuts for repetitive tasks. With a single click, an agent can send a pre-written response and perform a series of actions at the same time.

They go way beyond just pasting a chunk of text. A simple text snippet just saves you some typing, but a macro can bundle that text with actions like tagging a conversation, assigning it to the right team, or closing it out. Imagine a customer asks for a refund. Instead of typing out the policy, finding the refund tag, and assigning it to the finance team in three separate steps, you can do it all with one click. That’s a macro.

A view of the Intercom inbox where an agent manages a customer conversation and can apply Intercom macros.

According to Intercom, you can combine a reply with actions like assigning, tagging, snoozing, and changing priority. This is what makes them so handy for creating standard procedures for common requests. You can build and tweak them right from your Intercom Inbox or in your workspace Settings, making them pretty easy to get started with.

What can Intercom macros actually do?

The magic of Intercom macros is in how they mix and match content with automated actions. This lets you turn a clunky, multi-step process into a smooth, one-click workflow, which saves time and cuts down on simple mistakes.

Combining content and actions with Intercom macros for a faster workflow

Macros are super flexible. You can set them up to be just content, just a series of actions, or a combination of both.

For the content part, you can include pretty much anything you need:

• Plain text and emojis (of course)

• Links to your help center articles

• GIFs and images to add a bit of personality

• File attachments, like guides or forms

You can then pair that content with a bunch of different actions that the macro will run automatically:

• Assign the conversation to a specific person or team.

• Add one or more tags to keep things organized.

• Snooze the conversation for a while or just close it.

• Bump up (or down) the conversation's priority level.

• Use a data connector to ping external systems through an API call.

Real-world Intercom macro examples

Theory is great, but let's see how this plays out in a real support queue. Here are a few common situations where macros can be a lifesaver.

The limits of manual Intercom macros

Macros are a great starting point. But as your company grows and your customer questions get messier, you’ll quickly start to feel their limitations. It doesn't take long for teams to hit a point where managing their giant library of macros feels like more work than it's worth.

Here are the big problems that macros, on their own, just can't fix.

The big problem with Intercom macros: They’re static

Macros are rigid. They do exactly what you programmed them to do, every single time. They can't pick up on the nuances of a conversation or change their response based on what the customer just said. If a customer asks a simple follow-up question, the macro is suddenly useless, and your agent has to jump back in to handle it manually.

This also creates a huge maintenance headache. Let’s say your company updates its return policy. Now someone on your team has to play detective, hunting down every single macro that mentions the old policy and updating it by hand. It’s tedious, and it’s so easy to miss one. Sending a customer an outdated link or an incorrect policy detail can turn a simple interaction into a frustrating one.

Intercom macros only know what you tell them

A macro can only spit out the exact text you wrote for it or link to a help center article you specified. It can't pull information from different places or create a new answer by combining existing knowledge.

This is a massive pain. What happens when the answer isn't in a neat, pre-approved macro? More often than not, it's buried in a past support ticket, a Google Doc with project notes, a team update in Notion, or a technical guide in Confluence. When that’s the case, your agent has to ditch the macro and start digging through all those different apps. This kind of manual searching completely defeats the purpose of having shortcuts in the first place.

Intercom macros have zero conversational intelligence

At the end of the day, macros can’t actually understand what a customer wants. They don't fire because they recognize a user's intent; they fire because a human agent reads the message, figures out what's needed, and then manually picks the right macro from a dropdown list.

This means your agent is still doing all the upfront mental work. They have to read the question, diagnose the issue, consider the context, and search for the correct response. The macro just automates the final step of typing and clicking a few buttons. It can't sort complex issues from simple ones, handle a question with three different parts, or make any kind of judgment call on its own.

Moving beyond Intercom macros: Supercharging your workflow with AI

For any team that feels like they've outgrown their macros, AI is the logical next step. Modern AI tools don't just repeat what you tell them to; they understand, learn, and respond in real-time, solving the very problems that make macros so frustrating.

A diagram showing how AI can draw from multiple knowledge sources, unlike static Intercom macros.

This is where you can bring in a tool to really elevate your automation game.

Go beyond Intercom macros: Connect your whole company's brain

The single biggest weakness of macros is that they’re stuck with pre-written text. An AI-powered tool gets around this by connecting to all the places your company knowledge is scattered.

A tool like eesel AI integrates directly with Intercom, but it also connects to your other sources of truth. Think about all those helpful answers living in past tickets, Confluence pages, Google Docs, and Notion databases. The AI reads and understands it all, allowing it to generate accurate answers even if that specific information has never been put into a macro. Your team can stop hunting for answers, because the AI finds and delivers them in seconds.

Go from static Intercom macros to dynamic conversations

Unlike the stiff, robotic text you often get from a macro, a good AI agent can understand the flow of a conversation and write responses that sound genuinely human.

For instance, eesel AI learns from your team's past support conversations to automatically adopt your unique brand voice and tone. This makes sure your automated replies always sound like they’re coming from your team. With a customizable workflow engine, you can even build out a unique AI persona and create custom actions, giving you full control over how the AI behaves without locking you into rigid rules.

Test it out and deploy with confidence

One of the scariest parts of launching new automation is the uncertainty. You don't really know how it will perform until it's live and talking to actual customers. With macros, you only see the impact after you've rolled them out.

eesel AI helps you avoid that anxiety with a powerful simulation mode. Before the AI ever touches a live conversation, you can safely test your entire setup on thousands of your own historical tickets. This gives you a clear, data-driven forecast of how it will perform, what its resolution rate will be, and where you might need to make tweaks. You can fine-tune everything and launch your new and improved automation with total confidence.

How much do Intercom macros cost?

This is a common question, and the answer is simple: Intercom macros are a built-in feature, not a separate product you have to pay extra for.

They are a core part of the platform's toolkit and are available on all of Intercom’s support plans. For the latest details on which features come with which plan, it’s always best to check their official pricing page.

From manual Intercom macros to intelligent automation

Intercom macros are an indispensable tool for any support team trying to get a handle on their inbox. They’re a brilliant first step into automation, perfect for knocking out simple, repetitive tasks with speed and consistency.

But for teams that want to offer truly instant, smart, and scalable support, they are just that: a first step. When you find yourself spending more time managing your macros than using them, or when your team is still drowning in manual work, that's a good sign that it's time to evolve.

By layering AI on top of the workflows you already have, you can automate the busywork that drains your team's energy. This frees up your agents to focus on the high-stakes, complex conversations where their human expertise truly shines, which was the whole point of using macros in the first place.

Ready to move beyond Intercom macros with AI-powered automation?

If your library of Intercom macros is starting to feel more like a burden than a benefit, or if your static replies just aren't cutting it anymore, it might be time to see what AI can do.

With eesel AI, you can connect your Intercom account and all your other knowledge sources in minutes. You can run a simulation on your own past tickets and get an instant preview of how many conversations you can automate right off the bat.

Start your free trial of eesel AI and see what the future of support automation looks like.