> Sometimes you see a corporate announcement that’s so obvious and so late, it’s almost an admission of failure.

...is this one of those times? Where does "Fin" come from?

I have a lot of mindshare built-up for Intercom based on integrating it, being a customer at one point, and using it on every SaaS landing page from 2010 to 2020. Ditching that sort of brand awareness for a new name seems like an odd choice.

The big question is whether "AI customer support" is its own category, where there is no leader yet, or if in the mind of the customer (entrepreneurs and enterprise) there is just one category of "customer support software" within which the delivery method is changing from human, to centaur, to AI.

If you assume the first case, building a new brand to try and dominate the new category is the right move. (at least according to the Al Ries/Jack Trout philosophy of positioning)

If the second is correct (which would be my perception, as someone with a similar experience as yours) then tearing down the old brand is a mistake.

I believe there was a window of opportunity where Kodak could have taken on digital photography, from their existing leading position because the category they owned was just "photography" (after all, there once was no other type).

It's only after they let the new category balloon that they became cornered into their existing category being renamed into "film" in the customer's mind, and by then it was too late.

This is a weird comment as it’s the name of their AI virtual assistant. It’s the face of Intercom.