Inside Intercom’s AI Turnaround, Why Software Companies Must Train Their Own Models | Eoghan McCabe, Co-founder and CEO
The Peel with Turner Novak
Turner Novak
4.6 • 11 Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2025
⏱️ 119 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eoghan McCabe is the Co-founder and CEO of Intercom, building Fin.ai, the AI customer service company.
This was an extremely candid, two hour conversation going inside every detail of how Intercom was the first late stage software company to successfully re-architect itself to be AI-native.
Intercom just announced they’ve built their own customer service-focused AI models, and Eoghan explains why most software companies will have to do the same.
We also talk through the lessons he learned coming back to run Intercom in 2022 after stepping back in 2020, why many AI companies have strong negative gross margins despite the narrative, how Intercom designed AI’s first outcome-based pricing model, the challenges of buying AI software today, the importance of brand when building new products, and we get in the wayback machine, talking through the pain raising Intercom’s initial million dollar Seed round, and how venture capital has changed since then.
Thank you to Eoghan’s Co-founder Des Traynor for helping me brainstorm topics for the conversation.
Special thanks to Ramp for supporting this episode. It's the corporate card and expense management platform used by over 40,000 companies, like Shopify, CBRE and Stripe. Time is money. Save both with Ramp. Get $250 for signing-up here: https://ramp.com/ThePeel
Timestamps:
(4:18) We’re at peak SaaS
(9:11) Inside early days of Intercom’s turnaround
(16:43) AI will beat humans at everything
(21:17) Making trade-offs building AI products
(24:25) Why Intercom trained their own AI models
(28:33) Lessons from returning as CEO
(34:19) Overcoming initial AI skepticism in 2022
(40:02) Creating AI’s first outcome-based pricing
(45:15) Intercom’s best-in-class gross margins
(49:25) Why its so hard to buy AI software today
(51:28) Unpacking AI’s negative gross margins
(58:12) Being perfectly positioned for AI
(1:09:47) Why AI products need their own brand
(1:16:13) Founder CEOs vs Manager CEOs in AI
(1:21:29) AI startup opportunities
(1:24:57) Lessons running a team in Dublin and SF
(1:28:25) How media has changed over time
(1:37:32) Raising Intercom’s first $1 million Seed round
(1:43:53) Why there are so many VC’s
(1:47:38) Advice for investors
Referenced
Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/
Fin: https://fin.ai/
Intercom Careers: https://www.intercom.com/careers
Eoghan’s website: https://eoghanmccabe.com
Intercom’s first pitch deck: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/intercompitchdeckpdf/253317574
Follow Eoghan
Twitter: https://x.com/eoghan
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoghanmccabe
Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The month after I came back, Chat GPT launched. |
| 0:03.4 | So the whole world changed really quickly. |
| 0:05.7 | And Des, my co-founder, came to me a weekend or two after it and said, |
| 0:09.4 | hey, the AI group, they think that there's something interesting that can be built here. |
| 0:13.4 | We realized we could build an AI thing that would do service instead of humans. |
| 0:18.4 | And the more we pull that thread, we're like, holy shit, this is going to disrupt. |
| 0:22.9 | Like your entire business. |
| 0:24.3 | Exactly. |
| 0:25.3 | Everyone who sells seats to humans that do service are in big trouble. |
| 0:32.0 | Welcome to the Peel. |
| 0:33.4 | I'm your host, Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital. |
| 0:36.0 | Today's guest is Owen McCabe, co-founder and CEO of Intercom and Finn, the AI customer service company. |
| 0:42.3 | I left the CEO role in the summer of 2020. |
| 0:46.3 | Frankly, I thought the company was about to be sold. |
| 0:49.3 | This was an extremely candid to our conversation on how Intercom was one of the first late-stage software |
| 0:55.2 | companies to successfully re-architect itself to be completely AI-native. |
| 0:59.9 | We had five quarters of sequentially declining that new AOR. |
| 1:04.0 | They also just announced they've built their own customer service-focused AI models and |
| 1:08.3 | own shares why most software companies will have to do the same. |
| 1:11.1 | When you own the full stack, it allows you to be a lot more nimble. |
| 1:15.1 | Apple own the hardware, the operating system. |
| 1:19.1 | They even own the chips. |
... |
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