I work at Influx (https://influx.com) which is human powered customer support.
We've found that inevitably AIs have some error rate and customers want to escalate to a person.
Our strategy has moved to:
- Let humans do the things that humans are good at: judgement, decision making, high novelty situations.
- Let AI do the things that computers are good at: repetitive tasks that require persistent effort
We've seen a lot of clients turn on these AI tools in their helpdesk.. hope for the best.. and get crap results. The tech isn't the hard part, the AI needs access to high quality context to answer questions accurately. But that requires more than just connecting your google drive or scraping your website.
We've found that a skilled human operator + AI is the best way to engineer high quality context to get the most out of the tools.
This announcement makes sense to me because I listened to this interview between the cofounder and one of the Collison brothers awhile back. https://cheekypint.transistor.fm/11
I recommend it if you’d enjoy a couple of Irishmen going back and forth about tech and business.
In short, Fin is their agent. They charge a dollar per successful customer session so they’re incentivized to make it helpful.
At the time of the interview, it sounded like Fin was still smaller than the help desk software but they saw it as having more potential. I guess it’s big enough now to justify renaming the company.
I didn't know about this and yeah that's not good, I was prepared to agree but....7 years ago, if my Googling is correct? Idk, hard to lean into my jaundice on this one.
> Sometimes you see a corporate announcement that’s so obvious and so late, it’s almost an admission of failure.
...is this one of those times? Where does "Fin" come from?
I have a lot of mindshare built-up for Intercom based on integrating it, being a customer at one point, and using it on every SaaS landing page from 2010 to 2020. Ditching that sort of brand awareness for a new name seems like an odd choice.
The big question is whether "AI customer support" is its own category, where there is no leader yet, or if in the mind of the customer (entrepreneurs and enterprise) there is just one category of "customer support software" within which the delivery method is changing from human, to centaur, to AI.
If you assume the first case, building a new brand to try and dominate the new category is the right move. (at least according to the Al Ries/Jack Trout philosophy of positioning)
If the second is correct (which would be my perception, as someone with a similar experience as yours) then tearing down the old brand is a mistake.
I believe there was a window of opportunity where Kodak could have taken on digital photography, from their existing leading position because the category they owned was just "photography" (after all, there once was no other type).
It's only after they let the new category balloon that they became cornered into their existing category being renamed into "film" in the customer's mind, and by then it was too late.
It's not weird. I suspect a lot of us have no idea, and the author shouldn't assume the average readers know this. It would help to introduce "Fin" before making the claim that it's obvious.
I have no idea what this is or what they do, and reading it made me realize that I still don’t - but for goodness sake can we stop naming things with dictionary words‽
And intercom is a thing, and Fin means fish or end. At least call it Fintercom or something.
So Intercom has increasing market share, and they're increasing investment in it, but it is henceforth to be considered "baggage" and a past to be destroyed? Is this Innovator's Dilemma or Osborne Effect? Either way I'm glad I don't manage the Intercom team with my CEO writing stuff like this.
<s> On the other hand, look how well this same argument worked out for Block. </s>
Fin/Intercom: "Fin is defining the AI era of customer experience"
Zendesk: "AI-powered service platform"
Freshdesk: "AI-powered platform for modern customer service"
Where are the companies that are proudly promoting "human powered" customer support?
I work at Influx (https://influx.com) which is human powered customer support.
We've found that inevitably AIs have some error rate and customers want to escalate to a person.
Our strategy has moved to:
- Let humans do the things that humans are good at: judgement, decision making, high novelty situations.
- Let AI do the things that computers are good at: repetitive tasks that require persistent effort
We've seen a lot of clients turn on these AI tools in their helpdesk.. hope for the best.. and get crap results. The tech isn't the hard part, the AI needs access to high quality context to answer questions accurately. But that requires more than just connecting your google drive or scraping your website.
We've found that a skilled human operator + AI is the best way to engineer high quality context to get the most out of the tools.
Ran out of VC money now that only AI companies get funding.
Humans are expensive! (AI is expensive too, but less directly and you don't have to pay for insurance (yet))
I... really would've expected this to be delayed while they acquired fin.com, but... seemingly fin.com is still a random finance/crypto startup?
This announcement makes sense to me because I listened to this interview between the cofounder and one of the Collison brothers awhile back. https://cheekypint.transistor.fm/11
I recommend it if you’d enjoy a couple of Irishmen going back and forth about tech and business.
In short, Fin is their agent. They charge a dollar per successful customer session so they’re incentivized to make it helpful.
At the time of the interview, it sounded like Fin was still smaller than the help desk software but they saw it as having more potential. I guess it’s big enough now to justify renaming the company.
Coincidentally, I'd wager there are far fewer search results for "Fin CEO allegations"
I didn't know about this and yeah that's not good, I was prepared to agree but....7 years ago, if my Googling is correct? Idk, hard to lean into my jaundice on this one.
What are said allegations I must have missed this news cycle.
> Sometimes you see a corporate announcement that’s so obvious and so late, it’s almost an admission of failure.
...is this one of those times? Where does "Fin" come from?
I have a lot of mindshare built-up for Intercom based on integrating it, being a customer at one point, and using it on every SaaS landing page from 2010 to 2020. Ditching that sort of brand awareness for a new name seems like an odd choice.
The big question is whether "AI customer support" is its own category, where there is no leader yet, or if in the mind of the customer (entrepreneurs and enterprise) there is just one category of "customer support software" within which the delivery method is changing from human, to centaur, to AI.
If you assume the first case, building a new brand to try and dominate the new category is the right move. (at least according to the Al Ries/Jack Trout philosophy of positioning)
If the second is correct (which would be my perception, as someone with a similar experience as yours) then tearing down the old brand is a mistake.
I believe there was a window of opportunity where Kodak could have taken on digital photography, from their existing leading position because the category they owned was just "photography" (after all, there once was no other type).
It's only after they let the new category balloon that they became cornered into their existing category being renamed into "film" in the customer's mind, and by then it was too late.
This is a weird comment as it’s the name of their AI virtual assistant. It’s the face of Intercom.
It's not weird. I suspect a lot of us have no idea, and the author shouldn't assume the average readers know this. It would help to introduce "Fin" before making the claim that it's obvious.
> but Fin is our future.
Looks like the end to me.
Besides a standard plain old rebrand - will there be any tangible benefit / gain from this move? Any reason for the rebrand to begin with?
Pronounced, "effin," right?
Posted on intercom.com ...
Isn't Fin the same agent Anthropic uses for customer service?
Given its the first logo they show in their homepage, yes..
What exactly is Fin?
That's what they write at the end of French comedy movies.
10/10 comment Monsieur
Intercom is dead. Fin.
Continuing the tradition of AI-company logos looking like buttholes.
I have no idea what this is or what they do, and reading it made me realize that I still don’t - but for goodness sake can we stop naming things with dictionary words‽
And intercom is a thing, and Fin means fish or end. At least call it Fintercom or something.
who cares?
shit nobody cares about award
So Intercom has increasing market share, and they're increasing investment in it, but it is henceforth to be considered "baggage" and a past to be destroyed? Is this Innovator's Dilemma or Osborne Effect? Either way I'm glad I don't manage the Intercom team with my CEO writing stuff like this.
<s> On the other hand, look how well this same argument worked out for Block. </s>
Now I'm curious. What's Block?