SeatGeek uses AI agents to deliver smoother fan experiences

Founded in 2009, SeatGeek offers a trusted marketplace for fans to easily buy and sell tickets to the events they love. The company also provides primary box office technology for some of the most prominent names in sports and entertainment globally, including Major League Baseball, the Dallas Cowboys, and Manchester City Football Club.

SeatGeek helps fans get into the events they love – whether it’s snagging last-minute tickets or selling ones they can’t use. The company’s mission is to make the ticketing experience as seamless and enjoyable as possible.

Helping fans get their tickets faster

During major events, SeatGeek’s support team saw a surge in customers needing support and quick resolutions, particularly around ticket access and event-related issues. They needed a faster, more scalable way to handle high-volume contacts, especially during peak season.

“We were really worried about all those repetitive questions,” shares Whitney Thomas, Senior Business Systems Analyst at SeatGeek. “We needed to find a way to address the issue that was frictionless for both the fans and the customer service team.”

In response, Thomas and the SeatGeek team set out to increase automated resolutions, decrease support ticket volume, and shorten response times. “We wanted AI to help us improve the self-service rate and reduce response times without sacrificing our quality service and support,” explains Thomas.

Using AI to resolve the most common question

SeatGeek partnered with Zendesk to roll out AI agents using a laser-focused, phased approach. The team started with their most common customer topic: Where are my tickets?

SeatGeek launched a pilot using Zendesk AI agents for logged-in users who could be authenticated and served relevant information automatically.

This AI-first support model was designed with cross-functional collaboration. Stakeholders from customer service leadership, product, and engineering teams worked together to define what success looked like: faster resolution times, improved AI agent and customer satisfaction, and reduced repetitive contacts.

“We brought in key stakeholders, including our support agents,” says Thomas. “Agents had great insight into what was being asked most and where they were spending the most time.”

Delivering answers with real context

The SeatGeek CX team leveraged Zendesk’s AI agents to pull accurate, context-specific answers directly from their knowledge base. Because Zendesk AI agents use a zero-training model, they were able to resolve issues immediately without additional setup or intent modeling needed.

“We did a lot of testing and iterating on our knowledge base articles,” notes Thomas. “The zero-training model has also been amazing. It can surface content based on an event, like the Mets versus Yankees, and it feels very personalized.”

The team’s approach included frequent feedback loops, pilot testing for different user states (logged-in vs. non-logged-in), and dynamic user interface (UI) improvements like carousels for ticket selection—all guided by user behavior and agent feedback.

“We focused on one category first, made sure we really nailed that down, and then quickly broadened the AI approach to more issue types,” says Thomas.

Automated resolutions drive tangible benefits

The results of the AI transformation have been dramatic. In just four months, SeatGeek increased automated resolutions by 6 percentage points, reaching an automated resolution rate of 51.5 percent by Q2 2025. Over half of support conversations were resolved by AI agents without needing human intervention.

As a result, support agent bandwidth improved and customer satisfaction soared. AI agent satisfaction scores more than doubled—from 34 percent to 70 percent—and that improvement extended to overall customer satisfaction. “We were seeing resolution happening faster, customers were happier, and we were not having as many escalations,” Thomas emphasizes.

Additionally, automation efforts drove significant operational efficiencies, as evidenced by a peak ticket season. From January through the start of the Major League Baseball (MLB) season, over 57,000 AI agent conversations used live APIs to pull order details, so customers got accurate information without delay.

“That means customers came in, were authenticated, selected their event, and got help retrieving their tickets more efficiently,” explains Thomas. “We helped about 50,000 to 60,000 customers get their tickets, prefilled, and out the door on time.”

The streamlined process not only reduced friction for customers, but also empowered agents. “We pre-fill ticket information for the agent, so they don’t have to search for it. It saves them time and creates a smoother handoff.”

Giving human agents a seat at the table

One of the keys to successful adoption was transparent change management and agent involvement. “We made sure agents saw demos of the AI agent exchanges, gave feedback, and knew how the flows worked. They helped us identify what didn’t look right,” says Thomas.

SeatGeek also created dedicated Slack channels for AI-related issues and enhancements, enabling real-time feedback and broader organizational engagement. “It shed some light on other parts of the company where we could automate as well,” notes Thomas.

Importantly, the company emphasized that AI was there to help—not replace—human agents. “We’re just here to help them on their journey as an agent,” offers Thomas.

Making the move from reactive to proactive

The SeatGeek CX team is not resting on its laurels. The next frontier in their AI journey includes proactive support for rescheduled or canceled events. “We want to get that information to fans as quickly as possible, rather than waiting for a flood of support requests,” Thomas shares. “Being proactive instead of reactive—that’s our goal.”

“We were really excited to see how positively impactful the Zendesk AI implementation was early on…and now we’re looking forward to the next iteration.”