The 7 best Freshdesk AI alternatives for smarter support in 2025

Freshdesk is a popular helpdesk, and for a lot of teams, it works just fine. But as AI gets better and better, you might be starting to feel that its native AI, Freddy, is a bit behind the times. Maybe you're looking for an AI that can do more than just repeat what's in your help center. Or maybe you're just tired of your team's real knowledge being stuck in Google Docs and Confluence, completely out of reach for your support bot.

The biggest headache, though? The thought of having to ditch your entire helpdesk just to get a better AI. A full migration is a huge, messy project that, let's be honest, nobody has time for.

That’s why I decided to dig in and test a whole bunch of tools to find the best Freshdesk AI alternatives out there. This guide skips the marketing fluff and gives you a straightforward comparison of the top 7 options for 2025. Whether you're after a simple AI boost for your current setup or a complete platform change, you'll find what you need to make the right call.

What is Freshdesk's native AI, Freddy?

Before we dive into the alternatives, let's talk about what you get with Freshdesk's own AI, Freddy. It's built right into the Freshworks ecosystem and is designed to help support teams with a few key features.

Freddy gives you AI agents for handling email tickets, a conversational AI for your chat channels, and an AI assistant that suggests replies for your human agents. Its main selling point is that it's native to the platform, it’s all in one place and ready to go if you’re on the right plan. It's a decent starting point for teams just getting their feet wet with AI automation.

Why look for Freshdesk AI alternatives?

While Freddy is convenient, many teams eventually hit its limits. If you're reading this, one of these probably sounds familiar:

• The best AI is locked away. Let's be real, the most powerful AI features in Freshdesk are often reserved for the expensive Enterprise plans. For small and medium-sized teams, it can feel like you're stuck in the slow lane while others get all the cool automation.

• Your knowledge is everywhere. Freddy is pretty good at learning from your Freshdesk knowledge base. But what about everything else? If your best troubleshooting guides are in Confluence, your latest policy updates are in Google Docs, and product specs are in Notion, your AI is essentially working with one hand tied behind its back.

• You don't have enough control. Sometimes, a built-in AI can feel like a black box. You want more say over your AI's tone, the kinds of questions it can answer, and what it does when it gets stumped. Maybe you need it to look up order info from your own system, a task that’s often too much for an out-of-the-box AI.

• The "all or nothing" problem. This is the big one. To get a smarter AI, are you really supposed to go through the pain of migrating your entire helpdesk? Moving years of tickets, retraining your team, and rebuilding workflows is a massive project. It feels like tearing down the house just to upgrade the kitchen.

Our criteria for choosing the best Freshdesk AI alternatives

To make this list actually useful, I judged each tool against a few key criteria that address the frustrations I just mentioned. This isn't just a feature list; it's about what provides real value.

• Ease of integration: How easily does it fit into your current workflow? Does it make you rip out your existing helpdesk, or can it make what you already have better?

• AI & automation power: Is the AI just a glorified FAQ bot, or can it actually do things? I looked for tools that can triage tickets, take actions, and learn from all kinds of data sources.

• Knowledge source unification: A smart AI needs access to all your knowledge. Can the tool learn from old tickets, internal wikis, and random documents just as easily as it learns from a formal knowledge base?

• Control & customization: How much can you tweak the AI? I focused on tools that give you real control over its behavior, personality, and what it's allowed to handle.

• Transparent pricing: Is the pricing model clear and predictable? Or are you going to get a nasty surprise on your bill after a busy month because of hidden per-resolution fees?

A quick comparison of the top Freshdesk AI alternatives

Here’s a quick look at how the top contenders stack up.

Tool	Best For	Key AI Differentiator	Pricing Model
eesel AI	Enhancing your existing helpdesk	Plugs into Freshdesk; learns from past tickets & all your docs	Flat monthly fee (no per-resolution costs)
Zendesk	Enterprise teams needing a full platform replacement	Advanced AI pre-trained on billions of interactions	Per agent, per month
Intercom	Proactive, chat-first support	Highly conversational AI agent ("Fin")	Per seat, per month + per-resolution fees
Gorgias	Shopify & e-commerce stores	Deep integration with e-commerce platforms	Per ticket, per month (usage-based)
Zoho Desk	Teams on a budget within the Zoho ecosystem	AI assistant ("Zia") integrated across Zoho suite	Per agent, per month
Help Scout	Simplicity and human-centric support	Basic AI assists with drafts and summaries	Per user, per month
Thena	B2B teams working primarily in Slack	AI ticketing and support directly within Slack	Per user, per month

The 7 best Freshdesk AI alternatives to consider in 2025

Let's get into the details of each platform.

1. eesel AI

eesel AI is for teams who generally like their helpdesk but just wish its AI was a lot smarter. Instead of making you migrate, it's a powerful AI layer that plugs right into your existing tools. You get an enterprise-grade AI brain without the enterprise-grade headache. It’s the perfect fit if your problem is with Freshdesk’s AI, not its core ticketing features.

Key Features:

• Go live in minutes: Seriously. You can connect eesel AI to Freshdesk with a single click and set it up yourself, no sales calls or mandatory demos needed. This is a huge relief compared to the long onboarding of most other platforms.

• Unify all your knowledge: This is where eesel AI really stands out. It doesn't just read your help center; it learns from your past ticket conversations to get your brand voice right. More importantly, it connects to all the other places your knowledge is stored, whether that's Confluence, Google Docs, Notion, or a bunch of PDFs.

• Total control & risk-free testing: Before the AI ever talks to a customer, you can run it in a simulation mode. It tests the AI on thousands of your past tickets, shows you exactly how it would have replied, and even forecasts your automation rate. You can then adjust its behavior and roll it out gradually with confidence.

Pricing:

eesel AI has a straightforward, flat-fee pricing model. There are no surprise per-resolution charges, so your bill won't jump up after a busy month.

• Team Plan: $299/month ($239/mo if billed annually) for up to 1,000 AI interactions.

• Business Plan: $799/month ($639/mo if billed annually) for up to 3,000 interactions, plus features like training on past tickets and AI actions.

• Custom Plan: For teams needing unlimited interactions and more advanced setups.

Pros & Cons:

The biggest pro is that it improves your current helpdesk without forcing a migration. It trains on all your scattered company knowledge and gives you a powerful simulation mode for a confident rollout. The pricing is also predictable. The only "con" is that it’s not a full helpdesk replacement, but that's the whole point.

2. Zendesk

Zendesk is the other big name in the helpdesk space and Freshdesk's main competitor. If you're looking for a complete platform change and have the budget for it, Zendesk is a very capable option. It’s built for larger, enterprise-level teams that need a robust, all-in-one solution.

Key Features:

Zendesk has a comprehensive agent workspace that brings all customer conversations into one place. Its AI is pre-trained on a huge dataset of billions of real customer interactions, giving it a solid understanding of support context from day one. The platform also has advanced reporting and a massive app marketplace.

Pricing:

Zendesk's pricing can be complicated, with different tiers for its "Support" and "Suite" plans.

• Support Team: Starts at $19 per agent/month (billed annually) for basic email ticketing.

• Suite Team: Starts at $55 per agent/month (billed annually) for omnichannel support and some AI features.

• Suite Professional & Enterprise: $115 and $169 per agent/month respectively, which unlocks the more advanced AI, reporting, and customization.

• Add-ons: Advanced AI agents and other key features often cost extra.

Pros & Cons:

On the plus side, Zendesk is extremely powerful, scalable, and has a mature feature set. The downside is that it requires a complete and often difficult migration from Freshdesk. It can also get very expensive, especially once you add the AI features you actually need.

3. Intercom

Intercom is a leader in proactive, chat-first support. If your team is less focused on traditional email tickets and more on real-time conversations on your website or in your app, Intercom is a great choice. It's especially useful for teams where sales, marketing, and support work together closely.

Key Features:

Intercom's AI Agent, "Fin," is known for its natural, conversational style. The platform gives you a unified tool for messaging, a help desk, and proactive outbound campaigns, all in a clean, modern package.

Pricing:

Intercom’s pricing can be tough to predict.

• Essential Plan: Starts at $29 per seat/month (billed annually).

• Advanced & Expert Plans: Priced at $85 and $132 per seat/month respectively.

• Fin AI Agent: Here's the catch. It costs an extra $0.99 per resolution. This fee means your costs can balloon unexpectedly as your support volume grows.

Pros & Cons:

Intercom is excellent for real-time chat and has a beautiful user interface. However, that per-resolution pricing model can get very expensive and make budgeting a headache. It's also less geared toward traditional email support.

4. Gorgias

If you run an e-commerce store on a platform like Shopify or BigCommerce, Gorgias is built just for you. It's designed to integrate deeply with your store's backend, giving your agents instant access to customer data.

Key Features:

The real magic of Gorgias is its e-commerce integration. Agents can see a customer's full order history and even do things like edit an order or issue a refund right from the helpdesk. Its AI is trained to handle common e-commerce questions like "Where is my order?" out of the box.

Pricing:

Gorgias uses a usage-based model tied to the number of "billable tickets" you handle each month.

• Starter: $10/month for 50 tickets.

• Basic: $50/month for 300 tickets.

• Pro: $300/month for 2,000 tickets.

• Advanced: $750/month for 5,000 tickets.

• AI Agent: This is priced separately and starts at $1.00 per resolution on the Starter plan, getting slightly cheaper on higher tiers.

Pros & Cons:

It’s the best choice for e-commerce automation since it pulls in all your customer data. But it's not a good fit for businesses outside of e-commerce. The usage-based pricing can also be unpredictable, especially during busy seasons like Black Friday.

5. Zoho Desk

For teams already using other Zoho products (or those on a tight budget), Zoho Desk is a surprisingly capable and affordable alternative. It offers a lot of features for the price.

Key Features:

Zoho Desk has its own AI assistant, Zia, which helps with sentiment analysis, ticket tagging, and suggesting replies. It’s very customizable and connects smoothly with Zoho CRM and the dozens of other apps in the Zoho suite, making it feel like a single, unified system.

Pricing:

Zoho Desk is known for its competitive pricing.

• Free Plan: Available for up to 3 users.

• Standard: Starts at $14 per user/month (billed annually).

• Professional: $23 per user/month.

• Enterprise: $40 per user/month for the full feature set, including more AI capabilities.

Pros & Cons:

It's highly affordable with a generous free plan and is quite powerful for its price, especially if you're in the Zoho ecosystem. On the other hand, the interface can feel a bit dated, and you get the most out of it when you're using other Zoho products.

6. Help Scout

Help Scout is designed for teams who want their customer support to feel personal and human, not automated. It focuses on simplicity and a clean user experience, which makes it incredibly easy to pick up and use.

Key Features:

Help Scout is built around a shared inbox that feels like a normal email client. It has a great knowledge base feature called Docs, and its Beacon widget offers a simple way to provide help on your website. Their AI is meant to be an assistant for agents, helping draft, summarize, and translate replies, rather than fully automating chats.

Pricing:

Help Scout’s pricing is simple and per-user.

• Standard: $25 per user/month (billed annually).

• Plus: $45 per user/month.

• Pro: $75 per user/month.

• AI Answers Add-on: Their automated chatbot costs an extra $0.75 per resolution.

Pros & Cons:

It's very easy to use, helps you maintain a personal touch with customers, and is affordable. The trade-off is that its AI and automation features are intentionally less advanced than others on this list.

7. Thena

Thena is a newer tool built for a very specific workflow: B2B support teams that do almost everything in Slack. If your customers are in shared Slack channels and that's where support happens, Thena is designed to bring some order to that potential chaos.

Key Features:

Thena's main feature is its native Slack integration, which spots support requests in channels and turns them into trackable tickets. It provides account-level views so you always have the right B2B context, and its AI helps sort and manage issues right inside Slack.

Pricing:

Thena offers a free plan to get you started.

• Free Plan: Up to 10 users and 1,000 tickets/month.

• Standard Plan: $79 per user/month (billed annually).

• Enterprise Plan: $119 per user/month (billed annually).

Pros & Cons:

Thena is excellent for managing B2B customer support in Slack and adds much-needed structure to conversational support. However, it's very specialized. It's not the right tool if your main support channels are email, phone, or a website chat widget.

How to choose the right Freshdesk AI alternative for your team

Feeling a bit overwhelmed? Don't worry. Picking the right tool just comes down to answering a few questions.

• 1. Do you need to switch or just upgrade? This is the most important question. Is your main issue with Freshdesk's ticketing system, or is it just the AI that's not cutting it? If you're happy with your helpdesk and just want a smarter bot, an AI enhancement tool like eesel AI is the fastest, cheapest, and least disruptive option.

• 2. Where do your customers talk to you? Are you buried in emails? Is your website's live chat going all day? Or are your most important customers in Slack? Your main channel will point you in the right direction. Think Intercom for chat, Thena for Slack, and more traditional helpdesks for email.

• 3. Where is your team's knowledge? If your best troubleshooting guides and answers are spread across Confluence, Google Docs, and various PDFs, you need a tool that can connect to all of them. This is a huge advantage for solutions like eesel AI.

• 4. Try it out with real questions. Don't just watch the polished demos. Sign up for a free trial and throw your actual, messy, common support questions at the AI. See how it does. It's the only way to know if a tool will really work for your team.

This video explores some of the top Freshdesk AI alternatives that can save you time with automation and enhance customer engagement.

Upgrade your helpdesk with the right Freshdesk AI alternative

Improving your support AI doesn't have to mean blowing up your entire workflow with a painful and expensive migration. The smarter way to do it is to integrate a powerful AI layer on top of the tools your team already uses every day.

This is exactly what eesel AI is designed for. It lets you keep the parts of Freshdesk that work for you while giving its AI capabilities a major boost. You get powerful, controllable, and easy-to-set-up automation that learns from all of your company knowledge, not just what's in your help center.

Ready to see what your Freshdesk can do with a smarter brain? Start your free eesel AI trial or book a demo to see it in action.