Sep 24, 2025 · 1 hr 18 min · 17 segments
Des Traynor, cofounder of Intercom, sits down for a Cheeky Pint with John Collison to discuss the growth of Fin (Intercom’s AI customer service agent), why selling AI products is hard, advice for…
Des TraynorGuest
John CollisonHost
Maybe there's the repeated pattern in tech where the enthusiasm for technologies comes before the technology being ready.
And so people are excited about computer games before the wave of like good computer games.
Or, you know, people are pitching mobile internet and, you know, you'll buy cinema tickets via WAP, etc.
It was originally called Answer Bot, but I think Zendesk threatened to sue us because they had a competitive product.
But Resolution Bot was actually a good AI product at the time, but it's just AI wasn't there.
And so that was the actual reason why we had such a head start, because we actually already had a little AI group ready to go.
But yeah, I think a lot of these products, you're right, have kind of two or three stabs before they go mainstreaming.
and there was this whole enthusiasm cycle for bots in 2017, I want to say, and the tech just wasn't there at all.
And at some point, I think everyone looked, there was a genuine question at times where it was just like, is a web form not just better? I think a lot of cases it was.
Whereas I think now people are starting to have the experience of, you know, the classic thing is, you know, you're talking to a bot.
It's like, please, will you please just connect me to a human? Whereas now it's like, can you just connect me to a bot? We see
Maybe there's the repeated pattern in tech where the enthusiasm for technologies comes before the technology being ready.
And so people are excited about computer games before the wave of like good computer games.
Or, you know, people are pitching mobile internet and, you know, you'll buy cinema tickets via WAP, etc.
It was originally called Answer Bot, but I think Zendesk threatened to sue us because they had a competitive product.
But Resolution Bot was actually a good AI product at the time, but it's just AI wasn't there.
And so that was the actual reason why we had such a head start, because we actually already had a little AI group ready to go.
But yeah, I think a lot of these products, you're right, have kind of two or three stabs before they go mainstreaming.
and there was this whole enthusiasm cycle for bots in 2017, I want to say, and the tech just wasn't there at all.
And at some point, I think everyone looked, there was a genuine question at times where it was just like, is a web form not just better? I think a lot of cases it was.
Whereas I think now people are starting to have the experience of, you know, the classic thing is, you know, you're talking to a bot.
It's like, please, will you please just connect me to a human? Whereas now it's like, can you just connect me to a bot? We see
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