Blending AI and human expertise: Zendesk’s approach to CX

Zendesk has been through many transformations over our 18-year history; but none of those are as significant as what we’re experiencing together right now with AI opening a thousand doors, and raising just as many questions. Winning in the midst of this change requires focus and a deep understanding of what exactly we’re transforming and why.

As Zendesk’s Chief Transformation Officer, I’m focused on transformation that you, our customers and prospective customers, can see, feel, and benefit from. We have put AI to work where it boosts speed and accuracy and protects trust, without adding friction. We do this by leveraging our own AI Agents Advanced technology in our virtual assistant Zea. The transformation comes from pairing with expanded live support, enabling faster and deeper resolutions and not just responses. We’re excited to keep raising the bar in ways that we hope you continue to notice.

Using AI to improve CX at scale

We’ve evolved our chatbot to Zea, an AI agent built on AI Agents Advanced. Today, Zea fully handles or successfully escalates 90% of conversations, improving speed and accuracy while preserving quality; more than half of those are entirely resolved by Zea. This means faster answers, fewer handoffs and less back-and-forth for you. We accelerated further by converting our static workflows into generative, procedure‑based ones across sales and support, shifting from legacy rule-based flows to AI‑generated replies.

Today, generative responses power more than 30,000 conversations per month. We’ve trained new personas for prospects and customers coming up for renewal to cover more use cases with the same specificity you expect from a customer service experience. To ensure a trusted, secure experience, Zea uses OAuth‑based, permissioned actions to handle approved tasks and keeps a clear record of every interaction. That means help arrives fast—without compromising safety, compliance, or consistency.

Zea represents one part of the Zendesk Resolution Platform, where AI, human agents, and knowledge come together to deliver real resolutions—not just deflection.

Blending AI with human support

AI is only one part of exceptional service. That’s why we have supplemented our always-on messaging experience with live phone support coverage for US hours to provide immediate access to Zendesk experts when things can’t wait.

Whether you’re a prospective customer seeking answers from our sales team or an existing customer resolving a finance or billing issue that’s slowing you down, we’re ready to answer your call. And when the phone isn’t the right channel for your issue, Zea is always ready to assist you and can hand off the conversation when a human touch is needed, with no context lost and no need to repeat yourself.

Support that scales with you

Whether you need a person right now or want to grow your team’s capabilities, our refreshed AI training has you covered. Discover the new Zendesk AI learning path, featuring hands-on training with AI Agents, Copilot, and App Builder to help you automate support, boost agent productivity, and earn your Zendesk AI Practitioner badge.

Be sure to check out the full library of training programs at training.zendesk.com for even more ways to skill up and support your team.

Setting a higher standard, together

By merging Zea’s agentic capabilities with enhanced live support, Zendesk is setting a new standard for blending technology and human expertise to elevate your experience in ways you’ll notice. Explore how to unlock these capabilities for your own operations by visiting one of the resources below or ask Zea to chat with your account representative to learn more.

• About the AI agents – Advanced add-on: Overview of the AI Agents Advanced product and key features.
• Getting started with AI agents – Advanced: Step-by-step on creating and configuring your advanced AI agents.
• Connecting your advanced AI agent to Zendesk Support: Technical guide for integrating your AI agent with Zendesk Support workflows.