Intercom (Messenger)

Connect your AI chatbot to your Intercom workspace and existing Intercom live chat widget (Messenger) on your website.

You can now integrate your AI chatbot directly into Intercom for a seamless AI chatbot experience.

The Intercom integration is available on all paid plans, see pricing.

What are the benefits of using My AskAI within Intercom?

There are several reasons why you should use your My AskAI within Intercom:

While Intercom has its own AI chatbot (called "Fin"), it is expensive, around 5-10x the price of My AskAI per conversation (we also think ours is smarter, but we'll let you be the judge!)
You can add more knowledge to your AI chatbot in addition to your website and Intercom help center by using our connections or file uploads.
There are several ways your CS team can use your AI chatbot within Intercom, so you can use whichever works for them (read on below for more).
You don't have to add any code to your site to get your chatbot live, just connect our app and you're ready to go.
Every AI answer is provided with "References" to the sources used to answer the question under "Learn more" at the end of each answer.
As well as an AI chatbot, you get all our other features like Insights, Email Assistant, Site Search, Private (Internal) mode, Integrations with Slack and more.

How to use your AI chatbot within Intercom Messenger

How to connect your AI chatbot to Intercom

Ensure that you have turned off Fin before completing these steps.

Login to your Dashboard and go to Chatbot setup > Integrations.
Once enabled you will see "Live Chat apps" appear, click on the Intercom icon.

Then click the "Connect your Intercom account" button.

This will open an authorizations/permissions screen, click "Authorize access" if you agree.

Your AskAI is now connected to Intercom and will be providing "note" responses.

How can I use my AI chatbot within Intercom?

There are 4 ways you can use your AI chatbot within Intercom (you can use as many of these as you want at once):

Connect your AI chatbot to Intercom
In Intercom in the left-hand sidebar go to "Messenger & Omnichannel"

On the Messenger application, click "Manage settings"

Then expand the "Customize Home with apps" accordion.

Click "Add an app" at the foot of the page, then select "My AskAI" from the list of apps

Click the "Save changes" button at the top right of the page.

You will now see an AI Q&A widget on your Intercom messenger homepage, it'll look like this.

To remove the widget or to edit the visibility of it you can read more here.

In addition to adding the widget to your homepage:

You can share the widget as part of the conversation with the user by pressing CTRL+K and then searching for "My AskAI" and pressing enter. The user will then be given the Q&A widget in the chat itself.

Your team can use the widget within the Help Desk to get answers they can share with the user. To do this:

Scroll to the bottom of the right-hand panel
Click "Add app"
Select "My AskAI"
Drag the app to be visible in the panel.
You're done!

How to set up an AI-powered chatbot within Intercom (Fully conversational support)

Connect your AI chatbot to Intercom
Toggle conversational replies "on" by going to your Dashboard then Chatbot setup > Integrations > Intercom clicking the "Reply directly to customers" toggle.

That's it! Your Intercom messenger will now automatically respond to user queries using your AI chatbot's knowledge.

How to draft AI conversational replies to users, without sending them in Intercom

You can set the chatbot to automatically create AI note responses for you to use instead of replying directly to the user, to do this:

Connect your AI chatbot to Intercom
Toggle note replies "on" by going to your Dashboard then Chatbot setup > Integrations > Intercom clicking the "Reply with 'notes' for admins" toggle.

That's it, now when someone talks with your Intercom you will see the AI response appear as a note you can use to help with your reply.

How can I stop draft notes from being generated for a conversation in Intercom?

To stop draft notes from being generated for a conversation, just add a note to the conversation with:

"Stop writing AI notes"

This must be written as a 'Note' and not a 'Reply'

How does human handover work when using the Intercom messenger integration?

If, at any time, the user wishes to be passed over to a person to continue the conversation, all they need to do is say so, saying "Talk to a person" (or similar words to that effect).

Once the conversation is passed over to the human, the AI will not respond again until the agent hands back control to the AI.

When the AI chatbot cannot answer a question, it will also prompt the user to type "Talk to a person" to make it obvious they can speak to a person.

As part of the handover, the chatbot will summarize the conversation so the agent can pick up where the user left off so there is no repetition or frustration.

How can I take control from or give control to the AI assistant in Intercom?

You can give control or take back control from the AI at any time, here's how:

To take control of a conversation

Just reply to any open conversation as an admin/agent and the conversation's control will be taken from the AI assistant.

To give control to the AI chatbot

Create a Macro (Settings > Workspace> Macros (Saved replies)) with the below message. The underlined text must be included. The remaining text can be customized. "Hi there, I'll pass you back to our AI assistant for any further questions."

Now, to use the Macro, just type CTRL+K in the reply field and then select "Use Macro" and click "Hand back control to AI assistant"

How can I add my chatbot as part of a triaged workflow in Intercom?

Connect your chatbot to Intercom
Turn on the toggle switch for Workflow/Triage settings

Decide on a trigger phrase to use for your AI workflow handover button, type it into the field below the toggle switch and include this as the text in a button in your workflow (example workflow below for "Chat with AI assistant" as the trigger phrase)

This phrase must exactly match the pre-defined button you are going to use in your workflow message.

Turn off "Let customer type" in your initial welcome message workflow
Your AI assistant will now only begin responding after the AI chat button has been pressed.

How can I stop the AI agent from replying to specific phrases in Intercom?

To stop your AI agent from replying to a specific set of phrases in Intercom, share with us a list of the phrases you would like to block via email and we will update your bot with these.

(Available on Pro accounts and above).

How can I run a workflow after a human handover in Intercom?

To run a workflow after a human handover in Intercom you will need to create a Human Handover "Topic" and add a set of terms to this topic.

Follow these instructions to create a topic.
Then contact us and we will provide a list of the terms you need to add (this list is updated so we will provide you with the list and any updates).

How do I auto-close a ticket in Intercom after a set amount of time?

You can auto-close tickets in Intercom (that have not been transferred to a person) after a certain time period without a response to an AI agent's response by:

Going to Chatbot setup > Integrations > Add to live chat apps and click on the Intercom icon
In the pop-up, scroll to "Use inactivity auto-close settings" and toggle "Automatically close a conversations" to the On position

Set the amount of time you want the ticket to close after (by default this is 60 mins)
(Optional) You can also set a message to send automatically when the ticket closes notifying the user the ticket will be closed.
These changes will go live immediately.