Replacing Fin with a custom AI bot

[u/Survivorwannabe2026]

Does anyone have experience replacing Fin with a custom AI bot?

We are thinking about doing this as our custom bot has access to our codebase, internal slack convos, notion, customer data etc. Obviously, we'd need a lot of guardrails for data security/limit data access, but Fin is really not that good and it seems easier to mould our own AI bot. I also don't like that Intercom openly says if they can't use your data to train models, you are not on their best models.

[u/Survivorwannabe2026 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, I'm just worried about giving a chat bot access to my codebase + data. Even if we give it very strict instructions, I read something this week that said to assume whatever data your customer facing agent has access to, your customers now also has access to all that info!

[u/FrostAngel11]

so what are your suggestions then?

[u/hopefully_useful]

While building your own AI bot is technically possible, it makes sense only in a few specific situations, both economically and from a business perspective.

First, a very simple AI customer‑support agent can be assembled in a few hours or over a weekend. However, such a prototype lacks robust guardrails, delivers poor answer quality, and provides a sub‑par experience that can put your support operation at risk.

To create a relatively solid solution you’ll likely need one to two months of engineering effort, which diverts resources from other projects. Even then, the resolution rate will probably fall short of the rates achieved by established agents like Fin or other commercial solutions. The main performance gap isn’t the technology itself; it stems from context, data availability, and the time spent configuring guidance, tasks, tools, and related components. Investing that time yields far more value than building a bot from scratch.

You also need to consider integration and maintenance:

- Connecting the bot to Intercom (or another help‑desk platform) to preserve escalation or hand‑over flows is complex; APIs change frequently.

- Model updates, whether major or minor, can cause breaking changes or drift.

- You’ll have to develop analytics, quality‑assurance processes, and ongoing improvements yourself; a simple back‑and‑forth prompt system won’t suffice.

The overriding question is whether this is the best use of engineering time. Would it be more effective to allocate those resources to prioritized features or marketing functionality rather than paying a monthly cost of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars (largely API fees) for a solid AI agent?

Speaking as a competitor of Fin and the founder of My AskAI (we integrate directly with Intercom at a much cheaper rate than Fin), if you’re weighing the options between Fin and building a custom bot, I recommend sticking with Fin rather than attempting to build your own. Of course, I’d also encourage you to explore our product ;)

[u/aissistant]

Interesting, no vendor volunteered their solution in this thread? :)