Audiences are used across many parts of Intercom — workflows, procedures, guidance, and more. To prevent silent breakages, Intercom checks whether an audience is still referenced before deleting it. If it is, the delete is blocked and a modal lists everything using it. This article is for teammates who manage audiences for Fin AI Agent.
What happens when you try to delete an audience
When you click Delete on an audience, a dependency check runs:
If nothing references the audience, the delete proceeds normally — the existing confirmation flow runs as before.
If something still references it, the delete is blocked. A modal appears listing every object that's using the audience. No deletion is attempted.
The check runs when you click Delete, not when you open the audience or its menu, so browsing audiences is unaffected.
What can block a deletion
The following can prevent an audience from being deleted:
Procedures — a procedure targeted at the audience
Workflows — including audience-in-branch conditions and trigger conditions
Guidance — including a guideline version pinned by a candidate release
Rollouts — a rollout version referencing the audience
Other audiences — where one audience's targeting references this one
Knowledge suggestion rules and content-import rules
Messenger launcher targeting, Sales Messenger targeting, and file-upload targeting
Series exit rules, goals, and auto messages
Note: Archived rules, disabled Messenger launchers, superseded content versions, and series with exit rules turned off are treated as inactive and won't block a delete.
How to delete a referenced audience
Click Delete on the audience.
If a blocking modal appears, review the list of objects using the audience.
Open each item and remove the audience reference. In the modal, workflow and procedure rows are clickable and link directly to their editor. Other items — such as guidance, rollouts, and other audiences — appear as labeled rows without a direct link.
Once all references are removed, return to the audience and click Delete again. The standard confirmation dialog will appear — confirm to complete the deletion.
Where you can delete audiences
The dependency check applies in all three places where audiences can be deleted:
The Fin audience editor
The Audiences list in Settings > AI & Automation > Audiences
The AI content-library segments editor
FAQs
The modal lists a number like #4821 — what is it?
The modal lists a number like #4821 — what is it?
That's a rollout version. Rollout versions don't have titles, so the modal shows their ID. Contact your workspace admin or the team that manages rollouts to identify which rollout is referencing the audience.
I removed all the references but the audience still won't delete
I removed all the references but the audience still won't delete
Make sure you've saved your changes in each item where you removed the audience reference. Then try deleting the audience again — the check runs fresh on each delete attempt.
Can I delete the underlying rule behind an audience to get around this?
Can I delete the underlying rule behind an audience to get around this?
No. Deleting the underlying rule is also guarded, so the audience can't be orphaned by going around the audience UI.
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