Six weeks. That’s how long it took Intercom to pivot from stagnation to an AI-first future when GPT-3.5 dropped. Most companies are still in “pilot mode.” The difference between survivors and stragglers isn’t resources—it’s mindset. Recently, Intercom CEO Eoghan McCabe shared this story on Lenny’s Podcast, where he explained how betting everything on AI reignited the company’s growth.

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Adaptive Culture: Willingness to Pivot Fast

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The first trait of survivors is cultural flexibility. They don’t cling to legacy business models just because they worked yesterday.

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Intercom is a case in point. By late 2022, growth had stalled. Net new ARR was close to zero. Then ChatGPT launched. Within six weeks, Intercom shipped a working prototype of its AI agent, Fin. Within months, Fin was scaling to tens of millions in ARR.

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That speed wasn’t luck. It was cultural muscle memory: a willingness to throw out sacred cows, refocus strategy, and take painful steps, like replacing 40% of staff, to align with the new reality.

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Contrast that with stragglers. Many are still debating whether AI “fits their brand.” They’re protecting legacy revenue lines, afraid to cannibalize themselves. The result? Paralysis while more agile competitors eat their market.

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Decision rule for leaders:
If a new AI capability threatens your core product, you have two choices: disrupt yourself or watch someone else do it. Waiting for “more clarity” is a disguised no.

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Customer-Centric Thinking: Solve Real Pain, Not Vanity Features

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Survivors don’t chase AI hype. They anchor every move in customer pain.

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In customer service, businesses don’t care about “AI-powered conversations.” They care about faster resolution, lower cost per ticket, and more consistent experiences. That’s why Intercom priced Fin at $0.99 per resolved ticket, aligning revenue directly with the outcome customers wanted.

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This is a crucial lesson: in AI, outcomes beat features. Customers don’t value machine learning pipelines, model specs, or “GenAI integrations.” They value:

• Time saved
  
  
• Accuracy improved
  
  
• Costs reduced
  
  
• Friction removed

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Vanity AI features, like slapping a chatbot into a product because “everyone else has one”, do the opposite. They create more confusion for users without solving the job they actually hired you for.

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Checklist to sanity-check your AI roadmap:

1. Does this feature solve a top-3 pain our customers complain about?
   
   
2. Can we measure its value in a metric customers care about (time, money, satisfaction)?
   
   
3. Would customers pay for the outcome, not the technology?
   
   

If you can’t answer “yes” to all three, you’re building theater, not traction.

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Execution Speed: Why “Perfect” is the Enemy of Survival

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In an AI wave, survival favors speed over polish.

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Intercom’s prototype wasn’t perfect. In fact, early versions of Fin lost money on every ticket resolved. They charged $0.99 but were paying more than $1.20 in compute. But they shipped anyway.

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That’s the paradox: by moving fast, they learned faster than competitors who waited for margins to make sense. Costs dropped, models improved, and customer adoption accelerated, all because they got into the market early.

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Stragglers, on the other hand, treat AI like traditional software. They run 12-month roadmap cycles, spend quarters debating edge cases, and delay launch until the tech is “bulletproof.” By the time they ship, the market has already been redefined.

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Practical heuristic:
If your AI product roadmap timeline is longer than six months, you’re moving too slow. Aim for:

• 6 weeks → working prototype in the wild
  
  
• 3 months → first paying customers
  
  
• 12 months → revenue line worth protecting

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Ship messy. Iterate in public. Fix margins later.

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Talent & Leadership: Reset Strategy and Take Risks

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The final survival trait is leadership. AI disruption is less about technology and more about who has the courage to make uncomfortable calls.

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Eoghan McCabe, Intercom’s returning CEO, didn’t just green-light an AI experiment. He rewrote the company’s values, shut down non-core projects, and publicly declared Intercom an AI-first company. The result? 40% turnover but also a leaner, more ambitious culture with near-total alignment.

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Leadership in the AI era means:

• Resetting strategy when legacy bets stop working
  
  
• Cutting projects that distract from the core AI pivot
  
  
• Taking unilateral calls when consensus drags decisions into paralysis
  
  
• Hiring and empowering AI talent (and letting them move faster than the old org chart allows)

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Founders often outperform professional CEOs in these moments. Research shows founder-led companies consistently deliver stronger long-term performance . Why? Founders carry moral authority to make bold bets and own the outcome, instead of playing defense.

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Decision point for executives:
Ask yourself: do I have the conviction to bet my career on this pivot? If not, who in my org does? Put them in charge, and get out of their way.

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Survivors Think Different

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The AI wave isn’t “coming.” It’s here. And it won’t reward cautious dabbling. Survivors share four common traits:

• Adaptive cultures that pivot business models, even at painful cost.
  
  
• Customer-centric focus on solving real problems, not building AI theater.
  
  
• Execution speed that favors prototypes in weeks, not roadmaps in years.
  
  
• Bold leadership willing to reset strategy, cut distractions, and own hard calls.

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Executives often ask: What’s the risk if we wait? The answer is simple: while you wait, someone else is building the product that will make yours obsolete.

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So don’t wait for the “perfect plan.” Roll up your sleeves. Ship something customers value. Make the hard calls. The survivors of this AI era won’t be the biggest companies. They’ll be the fastest learners.