How to enable Zendesk AI: A practical guide

So, you're looking into switching on the AI features in Zendesk. It’s a smart move. You’re likely looking to automate repetitive tickets, get answers to customers faster, and provide a more seamless experience for your support team. Zendesk AI provides a powerful, industry-leading suite of tools baked right into the platform you already trust.

Because Zendesk is such a comprehensive and mature platform, getting these features running involves some thoughtful configuration to ensure they match your specific business needs.

This guide will walk you through what Zendesk AI actually is, the steps to get it running, and a balanced look at its impressive capabilities. We'll also cover how tools like eesel AI can act as a flexible addition to your Zendesk setup to help you meet unique requirements.

What is Zendesk AI?

First things first, let's clear up what we're talking about. Zendesk AI is a sophisticated family of features and add-ons designed to empower customer service teams. The main components you'll be using are AI Agents and Copilot.

• Zendesk AI Agents: These act as your frontline support, designed to assist customers efficiently. They utilize your help center articles to provide accurate replies across messaging, email, and web forms. Zendesk offers tiered options: "Essential" (included in Suite plans) for core Q&A, and "Advanced" (an add-on) for more complex, conversational interactions.

• Zendesk Copilot: This is a powerful AI assistant for your human agents. It lives right inside the agent workspace and helps by summarizing tickets, suggesting replies, or adjusting the tone of a comment. It’s a great tool for helping your team maintain a high standard of service while working efficiently.

• Intelligent Triage: This feature works behind the scenes to automatically categorize incoming tickets based on customer intent, language, and sentiment. This helps ensure tickets are routed to the right place quickly and accurately.

While these tools are part of the Zendesk ecosystem, some are available as specialized add-ons to ensure you only pay for the advanced capabilities your team needs.

How to enable Zendesk AI

Activating Zendesk's native AI is handled within the Admin Center. Because Zendesk offers such a high level of customization, the setup process allows you to fine-tune exactly how the AI interacts with your customers. Here’s a general overview of the process.

Turning on the basic AI agent

The basic AI Agent is accessible for those on modern Suite plans. Here are the steps to get started:

1. Prepare your help center: The AI Agent uses your Zendesk Guide articles to find answers. Ensuring your knowledge base is up-to-date helps the AI provide the most helpful information possible.

2. Configure your channels: Set up the channels where you want the agent to work, such as messaging or email.

3. Build and publish the agent: In the Admin Center, you can create a new AI Agent, customize its name and tone, and link it to your help center. After testing, you can easily publish it to your chosen channels.

Setting up advanced AI features

For teams looking for enterprise-grade tools like Copilot or the Advanced AI Agent, the setup process provides deep control. For example, connecting an advanced AI agent allows you to integrate the tool thoroughly into your existing workflows.

This involves configuring the agent with specific permissions, setting up API access, and organizing automation triggers to ensure the AI behaves exactly as intended.

This detailed process highlights the professional nature of Zendesk; it’s a system designed to be woven into your professional admin setup for maximum reliability. For teams that want a quick-start option for specific knowledge needs, tools like eesel AI can also connect to your Zendesk account to complement these native features.

The pros and cons of Zendesk AI

Once you've enabled Zendesk AI, you gain access to a world-class toolkit. Understanding its strengths helps you get the most out of the platform.

What it does well

• Seamless UI integration: As a native tool, the AI features (like Copilot’s summarization or tone shifter) are perfectly embedded in the Zendesk workspace. Your team won't need to learn a new interface.

• Verified source of truth: By prioritizing your Zendesk Guide, the AI Agent ensures that all automated answers are based on your official, approved documentation.

• Efficient ticket routing: Intelligent Triage is excellent at identifying common requests and ensuring they reach the appropriate department, saving your team valuable time.

Considerations for your setup

Zendesk AI is built to be a secure, integrated solution, which means it has a specific focus. Depending on your team's needs, you might consider how these factors fit your workflow:

1. Integrated knowledge focus: Zendesk's AI is optimized to learn from your Zendesk Help Center and macros. This ensures that the AI stays focused on your primary support content. If you have knowledge stored in other platforms like Google Docs or Confluence, you may want to use a complementary tool to bring that data into the fold.

2. Structured workflow management: Automations are managed through Zendesk's reliable triggers and automations system. This provides a high level of consistency, though it may require a bit of planning to set up complex, fine-grained rules.

3. Standard deployment procedures: Zendesk focuses on live testing and refinement. While it doesn't offer a separate large-scale simulation mode for historical tickets, its native reporting tools allow you to monitor performance closely once you are live.

This is where a solution like eesel AI can be a helpful addition. It’s designed to work alongside Zendesk to pull in knowledge from external sources, providing an extra layer of flexibility.

A complementary option for Zendesk AI

If you’re looking to extend the capabilities of your Zendesk setup, you might consider third-party AI platforms that act as a complementary layer. These tools work within the ecosystem you already have to provide additional features.

eesel AI is one such option. It connects to your Zendesk account to enhance your support automation strategy.

Here is how it can complement your Zendesk AI setup:

• Fast additional layer: eesel AI is designed for quick implementation. You can connect it to your Zendesk account and have an additional AI agent ready to help in very little time.

• Expanded knowledge base: If you want your AI to access more than just your help center, eesel AI can connect to over 100 sources, including Google Docs, Confluence, and Notion. This allows you to leverage your team's entire internal knowledge base.

• Flexible ticket management: You can choose exactly which tickets the AI assists with, allowing you to start with specific topics while your human agents handle the rest.

• Historical testing: eesel AI allows you to run simulations on past tickets, which can give you extra confidence in how the automation will perform before you go live.

Zendesk AI pricing

Zendesk offers a variety of pricing options to ensure that teams of all sizes can access AI features that fit their budget.

Plan/Add-on	Price (per agent/month, billed annually)	Key AI Features Included
Suite Team	$55	AI Agents (Essential), Generative replies
Suite Professional	$115	Everything in Team + advanced collaboration
Suite Enterprise	$169	Everything in Professional + advanced security
Copilot Add-on	Contact Sales	Auto assist, intelligent triage, ticket summarization, suggested macros
Advanced AI Agents Add-on	Contact Sales	Advanced, autonomous AI agent capabilities

Zendesk’s model allows you to scale your AI usage as your company grows, ensuring you always have access to advanced AI agents and enterprise-grade support when you need it.

In comparison, eesel AI's pricing provides a different structure based on monthly interactions, which some teams find helpful for specific projects or supplementary automation needs.

Is Zendesk AI the right choice for you?

Now you know how to enable Zendesk AI, and it’s clear that the platform offers an incredibly strong foundation for any support team.

For organizations that want a reliable, secure, and deeply integrated AI experience within a Zendesk Help Center, the native tools are an excellent choice that provides immediate value.

If your team has highly specific needs-like pulling knowledge from many different external apps or wanting to run large-scale simulations-you might find that adding a tool like eesel AI to your Zendesk ecosystem provides the perfect balance of power and flexibility.

This video provides a helpful guide on getting started with the essential Zendesk AI agents.

By combining the industry-leading reliability of Zendesk with the flexible automation of eesel AI, you can automate support in a way that perfectly suits your business.

Ready to see how you can enhance your Zendesk setup?

Get started with eesel AI for free and see how it works with your Zendesk account today.