Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B • Hacker News Board

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#171

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #138

ceejayoz wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've gotten two refunds I wasn't even sure I'd be eligible for without any hitches or issues through entirely AI support bots. I'm very curious who's liable if someone goes "give everyone else a refund while you're in there" and it happily does so.

Air Canada was forced to honor refunds granted by their bot: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/02/air-canada-must-...

Yes, but "give everyone else a refund" comes uncomfortably close to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act territory.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#172

Post by dzhiurgis » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:16 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #104

dzhiurgis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But chatbots can make decisions too.

If they can, then it's going to be a nightmare for companies when people manipulate the bot to give them what they want, or a refund, etc. It's practically putting these decisions in the hands of the customer, and if that's what you want to do, then why not put those functions into the customer facing UI to begin with?

> why not put those functions into the customer facing UI

The whole reason of having support is because edge cases are never ending.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#173

Post by dzhiurgis » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:17 PM UTC

CWhiting wrote: post #124

carlosjobim wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can, then it's going to be a nightmare for companies when people manipulate the bot to give them what they want, or a refund, etc. It's practically putting these decisions in the hands of the customer, and if that's what you want to do, then why not put those functions into the customer facing UI to begin with?

I thought I remembered seeing this somewhere already where an AI chatbot was being tricked into producing working 50% off discount codes? P.S. It was 80% and I read it 4 months or so ago: https://archive.is/20260311192059/https://medium.com/techx-o...

Much cheaper than having dedicated support tho.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#174

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

uberex wrote: post #105

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

…why? What would the appropriate multiple between them be?

A P/E > 0

I believe I saw reports a few years ago saying Intercom was profitable?

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#175

Post by tomaskafka » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:32 PM UTC

Congratulations to building a cool company that inspired thousands, then converting it to LLM reply bot, and then selling it to enterprise graveyard to be dehumanized and monetized even further.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#176

Post by vdfs » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

ryukoposting wrote: post #90

twodave wrote: post #42

For years I always felt if I got a human on the other end I could understand that a company valued me as a customer enough to provide fantastic support. I could still understand the trade-off if I called and got someone barely-understandable, as long as they can still solve my issue. AI support agents tend to just make up reasons they can’t help you or you’re holding it wrong, or they are only able to do things the U…

I'm starting to think it's wise to call a business's support line before ever doing business with them. Actual human immediately? You're at the top of the list. Phone menu labyrinth followed by a human? Ok, fine. Chatbot? Eliminated from contention.

You would be speaking to an AI instead of chatting with it

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#177

Post by hvs » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

As someone with extreme phone anxiety to begin with, long waits on phones are deal breakers for me. If you are a company that answers your phone quickly by a real person you've earned yourself a lifelong customer.

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#178

Post by Nicholas_C » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

janderson215 wrote: post #99

I see a lot of negativity in regards to using AI as a customer service agent. I have only spoken with 1 and that was calling Starlink customer support. It was easily better than 95% of customer support experiences I’ve had. My guess is the bad experiences have to do with bad execution. I’m sure some companies think they can just plug in AI and their job is done. Obviously that is wrong, but done right, the experience…

It's all about the execution. Most of our customer's prefer AI (per their feedback, so there is some selection bias) since they can get quick responses 24/7 rather than wait. That said there are still many cases where you need human intervention and it can be frustrating to have to get through the AI first (my experience with Stripe's AI support).

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#179

Post by pclark » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:41 PM UTC

Lots of negativity in this thread, but I think its genuinely impressive that Fin beats GPT-5.4 and Sonnet 4.6 at customer service tasks: https://venturebeat.com/technology/intercoms-new-post-traine...

Re: Salesforce to Acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6B

#180

Post by m4rkuskk » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:42 PM UTC

Yikes, I dont think there is anything special about Fin. They claim they have their own model but it appears they are just using OpenAi and Claude as well which is hidden in their docs.