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# Building the Next Generation of Software

Facing obsolescence by ChatGPT, Intercom pivoted 90% of its workforce to AI. Discover how this radical gamble spurred a $3.6B acquisition and tripled their engineering velocity.

- **Speakers:** [Des Traynor](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@des-traynor)
- **Event:** World Congress 2026 Europe
- **Published:** July 10, 2026
- **Duration:** 32:32
- **URL:** https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100186-building-the-next-generation-of-software

## Summary

In 2022, facing consecutive quarters of revenue decline and the existential threat of ChatGPT making their human-centric help desk software obsolete, Intercom (now Fin) made a radical choice to "die or fight." To survive, the company pivoted 90% of its workforce to build an AI agentic product that accounted for less than 1% of its revenue at the time. This massive gamble fundamentally transformed the organization from top to bottom, resulting in a $3.6 billion acquisition by Salesforce and a total rewrite of how they conceptualize, build, and ship software. Building real AI products demands rethinking what software is at a conceptual level. The traditional approach of designing disparate graphical screens for specific workflows is rapidly being replaced by intent-based interfaces. Users simply state their goals, and the system dynamically renders the solution or output. This blurring of product domain boundaries makes scope management critical and pushes teams to prioritize "compound reliability" through empirical evaluation rather than deterministic UI updates. Meaningful progress in AI software is often entirely subterranean, occurring deep within the backend logic rather than via flashy frontend features. This aggressive integration of AI irrevocably alters team momentum and role expectations. At Fin, leaning heavily into tools like Claude resulted in a massive surge in engineering velocity, tripling overall developer productivity and enabling designers to directly ship frontend code rather than opening layout tickets. In a landscape where traditional software moats have vanished and almost any feature is easily promptable, organizational speed is the last definitive competitive advantage. As teams evaluate their AI posture, they must push for rapid integration because "fast gets good before good gets fast," making raw velocity essential for survival in an AI-first world.

**Keywords:** ai agentic customer support, intent-based user interfaces, compound system reliability, empirical software evaluation, ai-assisted engineering productivity, llm post-training strategy, small language models, deterministic software development, product scope management, intent-driven product design, software competitive moats, intercom restructuring, ai code generation tools, workflow automation agents, engineering metric tracking

## Chapters

1. **Adapting enterprise software strategy for the AI era** (01:50) — Recognizing existential market threats demands an aggressive business pivot over iterative feature updates.
1. **Redefining digital product boundaries through AI workflow convergence** (05:35) — The transition to generative task automation dissolves traditional limits of distinct SaaS solutions.
1. **Shifting from graphical interfaces to dynamic generative interaction models** (09:46) — Intent-driven automated actions replace static navigation menus and specific functional screens.
1. **Resolving compound reliability challenges in AI product development** (14:38) — Continuous empirical evaluation and sophisticated post-training frameworks replace traditional deterministic software methodologies.
1. **Accelerating engineering productivity and design autonomy with generative code** (20:27) — Equipping product teams with advanced code generation dramatically decreases backlog processing times.
1. **Recognizing shipping speed as the primary competitive industry moat** (26:28) — Rapid deployment overtakes unique interfaces and proprietary functionality as the foremost market advantage.
1. **Balancing predictive intent processing with deterministic system execution** (27:51) — Achieving structural confidence relies on post-trained smaller models rather than frontier general intelligence architectures.

## Related Moments

- [Intercom's strategic pivot to an AI-first software company](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100238-how-building-with-ai-can-double-the-throughput-of-your-engineering-team) (from "How building with AI can double the throughput of your engineering team")
- [Transitioning software engineering teams to AI-native development workflows](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100087-ai-ready-what-enterprise-transformation-actually-takes) (from "AI-Ready? What Enterprise Transformation Actually Takes")
- [The growing necessity of orchestrating AI in software teams](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1950-the-scrum-master-as-an-orchestrator-guiding-human-ai-collaboration-in-modern-teams) (from "The Scrum Master as an Orchestrator: Guiding Human–AI Collaboration in Modern Teams")
- [Redesigning cross-functional teams for AI-driven software development](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100036-the-new-org-chart-when-ai-joins-the-workforce) (from "The New Org Chart: When AI Joins the Workforce")
- [Adapting team structures and agile workflows for agentic tools](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100198-the-last-mile-of-ai-from-prototype-to-production) (from "The Last Mile of AI: From Prototype to Production")
- [Shifting developer workloads and realistic AI productivity gains](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1830-wearedevelopers-live-speculaitions) (from "WeAreDevelopers LIVE - SpeculAItions")

## Related Articles

- [Navigating the AI Shift](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/629-navigating-the-ai-shift)
- [What is Software Engineering in the Age of AI?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/640-what-is-software-engineering-in-the-age-of-ai)
- [Never delegate the understanding](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/749-never-delegate-the-understanding)
- [Stephan Gillich - Bringing AI Everywhere](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/489-stephan-gillich-bringing-ai-everywhere)

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