The Customer Service Revolution: Building Fin, with Eoghan McCabe & Fergal Reid of Intercom

Today Eoghan McCabe and Fergal Reid of Intercom join The Cognitive Revolution to discuss building their AI customer service agent Fin, exploring how they achieved a 65% resolution rate through rigorous optimization and custom model training rather than relying on base model improvements, while pioneering outcome-based pricing at $0.99 per resolution. Shownotes brought to you by Notion AI Meeting Notes - try one month for free at: https://notion.com/lp/nathan Sponsors: Linear: Linear is the system for modern product development. Nearly every AI company you've heard of is using Linear to build products. Get 6 months of Linear Business for free at: https://linear.app/tcr AGNTCY: AGNTCY is dropping code, specs, and services. Visit AGNTCY.org. Visit Outshift Internet of Agents Claude: Claude is the AI collaborator that understands your entire workflow and thinks with you to tackle complex problems like coding and business strategy. Sign up and get 50% off your first 3 months of Claude Pro at https://claude.ai/tcr Shopify: Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide, handling 10% of U.S. e-commerce. With hundreds of templates, AI tools for product descriptions, and seamless marketing campaign creation, it's like having a design studio and marketing team in one. Start your $1/month trial today at https://shopify.com/cognitive PRODUCED BY: https://aipodcast.ing CHAPTERS: (00:00) About the Episode (03:43) Keeping Up With AI (09:56) Evaluating Models and Evals (13:04) Incumbents vs. Startups (18:54) Product Risk and Judgment (Part 1) (19:00) Sponsors: Linear | AGNTCY (21:34) Product Risk and Judgment (Part 2) (23:42) The Klarna Layoff Story (Part 1) (32:11) Sponsors: Claude | Shopify (36:13) The Klarna Layoff Story (Part 2) (36:14) Driving Resolution Rate (45:00) Intelligence Isn't the Bottleneck (50:10) Closing the Automation Gap (56:20) Human vs. AI Accuracy (01:01:03) The Nuance of Speed (01:04:48) Considering Paradigm Changes (01:09:31) Outcome-Based Pricing Model (01:19:12) Casual Hacking and Insights (01:26:05) AI Adoption and Ambition (01:36:00) Outro