A strategic guide: How to build AI-powered macros for Zendesk or Freshdesk

If you’re running a support team, you’ve seen it all before. The same questions fill the queue day in and day out: "Where is my order?" "How do I reset my password?" "Can I get a refund?"

Traditional macros give your team a bit of a shortcut, but let's be honest, they’re just pre-written text blocks. They can’t really understand what a customer needs or solve a problem on their own.

That’s where AI-powered macros change the game. They don't just paste text; they figure out what the customer is asking, pull information from different places, and can even take action to close a ticket without anyone on your team lifting a finger.

But getting them set up inside Zendesk or Freshdesk isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. This guide will walk you through it, comparing the built-in tools, pointing out the hidden limitations, and showing you a more effective way to create AI workflows that actually work.

What are AI-powered macros?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let's make sure we're on the same page. A traditional macro is a simple time-saver. With one click, you can send a canned response, update a ticket status, and assign it to the right person. They’re predictable, but they’re also rigid.

AI-powered macros are a different beast altogether. Instead of just following a script, they use AI to understand the context of a ticket and then decide what to do next.

Think of it this way: an AI-powered macro can:

• Figure out intent and sentiment: It can tell the difference between a customer asking for a shipping update versus one who wants a refund. It also gets a read on their mood, whether they're frustrated or just curious.

• Write dynamic responses: Instead of a generic template, it crafts a personalized, human-sounding reply using info from your knowledge base or even previous ticket conversations.

• Take smart actions: It can do more than just update a ticket field. It can look up an order in Shopify, check a subscription in Stripe, or create a bug report in Jira.

• Actually learn and get better: The AI improves over time by seeing which responses solve tickets and which ones don't.

Basically, you go from having your team manually apply templates to overseeing a system that automatically handles your most common questions.

The native way: Building AI-powered macros with Zendesk AI

Zendesk has been adding AI features to its platform for a while now, mostly under the "Zendesk AI" umbrella, which gets a serious boost with their Advanced AI add-on. This is their solution for building smarter automation right inside the helpdesk.

How Zendesk AI works

Zendesk’s approach is all about classifying tickets and giving agents a helping hand. The main features you'll use to build AI macros are:

• Intelligent Triage: This is the heart of their AI. It scans incoming tickets to automatically detect things like intent ("billing issue"), language, and sentiment. You can then use these tags to build triggers that route tickets or apply certain macros.

• Generative AI for Agents: Once a ticket is in an agent's hands, the AI can help them write replies faster. It can take a few bullet points and expand them into a full response or tweak the tone to be more formal or casual.

• Macro Suggestions: The system keeps an eye on agent replies and suggests new macros for common issues, which helps keep everyone's responses consistent.

The catch with Zendesk’s native AI

While it all sounds good on paper, building truly independent AI workflows in Zendesk has some real drawbacks.

First, it's expensive. The Zendesk Advanced AI add-on is a pricey add-on, usually running about $50 per agent, per month, on top of what you’re already paying for your Suite plan. For a team of 10 agents, that's an extra $6,000 a year just for the AI.

Second, it can be complex and inflexible. Setting up the triage and trigger system requires a lot of admin know-how. The AI is also trained on general industry data, so it might get confused by your company’s specific terms or unique product problems. You end up trying to force your business to fit into their pre-made boxes.

Finally, the knowledge is stuck in one place. Zendesk's AI mostly learns from your Zendesk Help Center. If your team's real, day-to-day knowledge is spread across Confluence, Google Docs, or buried in past tickets, the AI can’t access it. This leads to incomplete or just plain wrong answers.

Zendesk's built-in tools are a decent starting point, but they can lock you into a costly and rigid system. If you need your AI to pull knowledge from different sources or want more fine-grained control, you'll need something more connected.

The user-friendly way: Building AI-powered macros with Freshdesk AI

Freshdesk’s AI offering is Freddy AI, an assistant built to be more approachable, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses. The platform is designed to deflect common questions and help agents work smarter.

How Freshdesk's Freddy AI works

Freddy AI is baked into the Freshdesk platform and shows up in a few key ways:

• Freddy Self-Service: This is what powers Freshdesk’s chatbots. They can suggest relevant articles from your knowledge base to help customers solve their own problems.

• Freddy Copilot: For your agents, this tool suggests replies and articles as they work. It can also create quick ticket summaries so agents can get up to speed without reading the whole thread.

• No-Code Bot Builder: Freshdesk gives you a simple drag-and-drop tool for building chatbot flows. It's handy for setting up basic "if this, then that" kinds of automation without needing a developer.

The catch with Freshdesk’s native AI

Freshdesk makes AI feel less intimidating, but that simplicity has its limits.

First, the best AI features are locked away. Freshdesk has a free plan, but the AI tools that actually make a difference are bundled in the pricier tiers. For example, the powerful Freddy Copilot is an add-on that costs $29 per agent, per month.

Second, it’s built for simple problems. The no-code builder is great for basic FAQs, but it starts to creak when you throw complex, multi-step workflows at it. If you need your AI to do something in another system (like check an order in your backend), you’re probably going to get stuck.

Finally, its knowledge is also stuck in a silo. Just like Zendesk, Freddy AI learns almost entirely from your Freshdesk knowledge base. It has no way of tapping into the huge amount of information your team has stored in other places, which means it can only handle the most straightforward questions.

Freshdesk is a great option for teams wanting easy-to-use AI for basic ticket deflection, but it doesn't have the depth for true, end-to-end automation.

A better way: Build AI-powered macros that connect to everything

Both Zendesk and Freshdesk give you a taste of what AI can do, but they both struggle with the same problem: they’re closed systems. Real support automation needs an AI that can access all of your company’s knowledge and talk to all of your tools. This is where a dedicated AI platform like eesel AI changes things.

Instead of making you switch helpdesks, eesel AI plugs right into Zendesk or Freshdesk and gives them superpowers the native tools just don't have.

Get up and running in minutes

You don't need to sit through long sales calls or hire a consultant. With eesel AI, you can connect your helpdesk with a single click. It's completely self-serve, so you can set up and launch your AI agent on your own in less time than it takes to drink a cup of coffee. It just works with your existing setup, no developers required.

A workflow showing the quick, self-serve implementation of an AI agent with eesel.

Unify all your knowledge

This is the big one. An AI is only as good as the information it can learn from. eesel AI connects to all the places your team's knowledge is hiding:

• Past Tickets: It learns from thousands of your old conversations to get your brand voice right and find common solutions.

• Company Wikis: It connects to tools like Confluence, Notion, and Google Docs to provide thorough answers.

• Chat Tools: It can even learn from the discussions happening in Slack or Microsoft Teams.

This means your AI-powered macros can give answers that are way more accurate and helpful than what a siloed, built-in AI could ever manage.

An infographic illustrating how eesel AI unifies knowledge from various sources like wikis, chat tools, and past tickets to provide comprehensive answers.

Get full control and test with confidence

eesel AI gives you a level of control that you just don't get with the native platforms.

• Custom Actions: You can teach the AI to perform actions in other systems. For example, a macro could trigger an action to "look up order status in Shopify" and give the customer a real-time update.

• Selective Automation: You choose exactly which kinds of tickets the AI should handle. You can start small with just password resets and have it escalate everything else. Once you see it working, you can slowly give it more responsibility.

• Powerful Simulation Mode: Before you let the AI talk to customers, you can test it on thousands of your past tickets. This feature lets you see exactly how it will behave, predict your automation rate, and make adjustments in a totally safe environment.

The eesel AI simulation dashboard shows how the AI would have responded to past tickets, allowing you to test and refine its performance safely.

Pricing compared: Zendesk AI vs. Freshdesk AI vs. eesel AI

AI pricing can be confusing, with hidden fees and complicated tiers. Here’s a simple breakdown of how the costs stack up.

Feature / Platform	Zendesk with Advanced AI	Freshdesk with Freddy AI	eesel AI
Pricing Model	Per agent, per month add-on	Per agent, per month add-on	Tiered plans by AI interactions
Starting Cost for AI	~$50/agent/mo on top of Suite plan	~$29/agent/mo on top of Pro plan	Starts at $239/mo (annual) for 1,000 interactions
Hidden Fees	Complex plans with multiple add-ons	Live chat (Freshchat) is a separate cost	No per-resolution fees. Predictable cost.
Flexibility	Enterprise-focused, can be rigid	Easy to use but less customizable	Fully customizable actions and workflows
Key Advantage	Deeply integrated into Zendesk	Easy to set up for basic needs	Connects all knowledge; transparent pricing

The main difference here is the pricing model. Zendesk and Freshdesk charge you per agent, so your costs go up every time you hire someone. eesel AI's pricing is based on usage, with no fees per resolution, so your cost is tied to the value you're getting, making it much more predictable.

Build AI-powered macros that actually help

While old-school macros save your team a few clicks, AI-powered macros can save them from entire conversations. They allow your team to stop answering the same questions over and over and instead focus on the complex issues where they're needed most.

Zendesk and Freshdesk have built-in AI tools that are a step in the right direction, but they come with real trade-offs in cost, flexibility, and overall smarts. Because they're stuck in a silo, their AI never gets the full picture.

For teams that are serious about automation, the best move isn't to get locked into your helpdesk's ecosystem. A smarter approach is to use a platform like eesel AI that works with the tools you already have, brings all your scattered knowledge together, and gives you total control over how you automate support. You get the power of a custom AI solution without the long development time or surprise bills.

Ready to build AI-powered macros that do more than just send a canned response?

Connect your helpdesk to eesel AI for free and see how much you can automate.

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