Des Traynor is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Intercom, the customer communication platform used by 25,000+ companies worldwide.
He’s spent over a decade helping Intercom scale from a startup into one of SaaS’s most iconic brands. Today, Des is leading the company’s shift into the AI era — rethinking how support, success, and customer engagement work when AI becomes the default.
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Brought to you by Autoskills (https://autoskills.ai) – Helping teams go from AI-curious to AI-ready with tailored workshops and hands-on adoption.
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(00:00) Introduction — Des's role at Intercom and the company's early AI explorations
(04:25) How to spot the "right first use case" for AI in customer communication
(09:12) Trust, transparency, and shipping AI features that customers actually adopt
(14:48) Balancing speed of iteration with quality when moving AI into production
(19:33) Building an "AI-native" culture inside an established company
(25:07) What incumbents get wrong about adopting AI vs. what startups get right
(32:14) The business impact — how AI is changing Intercom's economics and customer value
(37:56) Lessons from previous platform shifts (mobile, SaaS) applied to AI
(43:20) The future of customer communication with AI at the center
(48:42) Lightning round + closing reflections
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Where to Find Des:
Where to find Haroon Choudery: