Introducing an Open Service Directory for AI Assistants and Personal Agents
An Open Service Directory gives AI assistants a trusted way to find official support across brands and service platforms, creating a shared foundation for Service in the AI era.
Jad Chamoun, Will Poon
AI at Zendesk
최종 업데이트 2026년 10월 11일
Your company’s next support request may come from a personal AI assistant. People are beginning to ask AI assistants to make appointments, request replacements and follow up on issues. The problem is that today those assistants lack a shared, trusted way to verify that they’re reaching the brand’s official support. That can lead to wrong answers, dead ends and customers having to start over—even when their assistant already understands what they need.
That’s why today Zendesk is announcing the Open Service Directory (OSD), a specification and public directory of verified support destinations that helps AI assistants discover and connect customers to a brand’s official support. Leading brands, including Betterment, ElevenLabs, Flex, TeamSystem, TBAuctions, Telekom Payment S.A., and Wireless Logic are joining to help shape the Directory and set a new standard for trusted service through AI assistants. Brands and platforms interested in participating can register interest in OSD here.
OSD extends the Agentic Resource Discovery (ARD) specification to enable AI assistants to discover and verify customer support agents officially endorsed by businesses. OSD’s discovery and registration capabilities complement emerging communication protocols such as UCP, PACT, and PAP. Zendesk will adopt these protocols and invites CX platforms, AI agent builders, and brands to help build the Open Service Directory as the shared foundation for verified support.
From finding an answer to getting something done
Imagine a customer asking their personal AI assistant, “Can you move my air conditioner repair appointment to Monday?” The assistant may find the company’s website or help articles, but completing the change requires reaching its official support.
With the Open Service Directory, the assistant can find the brand’s official support and connect to its AI agent with the customer’s permission. The brand’s agent can check availability and reschedule the appointment once the customer approves, within the brand’s policies.
If the request needs human review, it can move to the support team with the conversation history and actions already taken. The brand’s support platform can retain a record of the conversation and outcome, while the customer avoids starting over.
How the Open Service Directory works
The Open Service Directory works in three steps:
List approved support. Participating brands opt in and approve a support listing through their service provider. Any brand using Zendesk or another service platform can list on OSD. Listings are checked against the business’s own domain and screened for impersonation.
Find the right business. An AI assistant searches participating registries, verifies the match and uses the brand’s approved support destination.
Connect to official support. The assistant uses the verified destination to connect directly to the brand’s support experience.
Keeping brands in control
Once connected, the assistant operates within the brand’s authentication, authorization and service policies. The brand decides what customer information can be accessed, which actions are permitted and when a human needs to step in. The directory does not access private customer data or carry out support actions.
Zendesk is also developing controls to help brands identify the assistant and the customer it represents, apply the customer’s specific permissions and decide which providers can connect. The goal is visibility into who acted, with what permission and what happened.
Open by design
Open Service Directory gives AI assistants a trusted way to find official brand support across a broad ecosystem of brands and service platforms. Participating CX platforms and AI providers can publish verified support listings for the brands they serve.
The directory is compatible with OpenAI’s Dots and ChatGPT, Claude, Muse, Instinct, Grok Bot and Gemini.
Register your interest to learn more about the Open Service Directory and explore participation here.
Zendesk will share more details about the Open Service Directory and assistant controls next month at Zendesk AI Summit.
Jad Chamoun, Will Poon
AI at Zendesk
Jad Chamoun is Senior Director of Applied AI at Zendesk, where he leads engineering for CX Agent, the company’s AI agent for customer service. His work focuses on advancing AI agents that solve complex customer problems and deliver measurable business value.
Will Poon is a Director of Product Management for Messaging and AI at Zendesk, where he leads the messaging capabilities and their integration with AI. His work focuses on helping businesses deliver more connected, intelligent customer service across native and social channels.
Register your interest to learn more about the Open Service Directory.
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