How to import Zendesk help center to Intercom: A 2025 guide

Thinking about moving your help articles from Zendesk to Intercom? It makes sense. Plenty of teams are looking to get everything under one roof, creating a single go-to place for support agents and simplifying their day-to-day work. If that’s the project on your plate, you’ve come to the right spot.

We'll walk you through every step of the import process. But, we’re also going to be honest about what comes after the import. Moving your articles is one thing, but it can open up a whole new can of worms when it comes to keeping your knowledge organized and truly useful. Stick with us, and we’ll also chat about a different approach that might save you the migration headache altogether, especially if you're looking to get more out of your AI tools.

What you'll need before getting started

Alright, before we jump in, let’s get a few things sorted. Having these ready will make the whole process go a lot more smoothly.

• Admin access to both your Zendesk and Intercom accounts. You’ll need the keys to both kingdoms to make the connection.

• A Zendesk API token. Think of this as a secure password that lets Intercom access your articles. Don’t worry, we’ll show you exactly how to get one.

• A clear idea of your goal: are you doing a one-time import because you’re leaving Zendesk for good, or do you need a continuous sync to use Zendesk content within Intercom?

• Your Zendesk subdomain (it’s the "yourcompany" part of "yourcompany.zendesk.com").

• (Optional, but a good idea) Your Intercom Help Center should be set up with a custom domain. This is a big help if you want to keep your SEO rankings by setting up proper redirects from your old article links.

How to import your Zendesk help center to Intercom, step-by-step

Intercom offers two ways to handle this: a one-time import or an ongoing sync. Your long-term plan will determine which is right for you, but the setup process is nearly identical for both. Let's get into it.

Step 1: Generate your Zendesk API token

First up, you need to generate that secure key, the API token, that basically gives Intercom permission to grab your Zendesk content.

1. Log in to your Zendesk account and head to the Admin Center. From there, navigate to Apps and integrations > APIs > Zendesk API.

2. Click on the API token tab and hit the Add API token button.

3. Give the token a descriptive name, like "Intercom Import," so you remember what it's for. Copy the token immediately.

Step 2: Connect Zendesk inside Intercom

With your token in hand, it's time to pop over to Intercom and get things connected.

In your Intercom workspace, navigate to Knowledge > Sources. You should see a list of apps you can connect. Find Zendesk in the "Public articles" section and click on Sync or Import. Intercom will then ask you to enter your Zendesk subdomain.

A screenshot from Intercom's interface showing the 'Sources' section where users can connect Zendesk to import articles.

Step 3: Choose how you want to connect (import vs. sync)

Okay, this is probably the biggest choice you'll make here. Are you looking to completely move out of Zendesk and make Intercom your new home for articles? Or do you just want to use your Zendesk content inside Intercom, while keeping Zendesk as the main source of truth?

Here’s a quick comparison to help you figure it out:

Step 4: Finalize the connection and start the process

After you've made your choice, you just need to plug in the details.

• Select either "Import content" or "Sync content" based on your decision.

• Enter the email address you use to log in to Zendesk as an admin, along with the API token you just generated.

• Pick the Intercom Help Center where you want the articles to land.

• Click the Import or Sync button, and you're off!

The process itself can take a little while, anywhere from a few minutes to an hour, really just depending on how many articles you have. Intercom will send you an email once it's all finished.

Step 5: Check your content and manage redirects

Once the import is complete, you'll see your old Zendesk categories are now called "collections" in Intercom. Any labels you had on your articles will have turned into tags. It’s pretty straightforward.

The good news is that Intercom is pretty smart about creating 301 redirects automatically, which is a big deal for your SEO. You don't want to lose all that search traffic you've built up. Just know that this works best if you've already got a custom domain set up for your Intercom Help Center. You might also need to double-check any articles with custom formatting, as they might not look exactly right, or multilingual content, which requires you to have those languages enabled in Intercom first.

The catch: Why the import isn't the whole story

Getting all your articles into Intercom feels like a win, and it is! But it's often just the first step. The truth is, a straightforward import can sometimes shine a light on bigger, trickier problems with how knowledge is managed at your company.

Your knowledge is still in a silo

Think about it. Your official help articles are now in Intercom, which is great. But where does the rest of your team's knowledge live? I'm betting there are brilliant solutions and answers tucked away in past support tickets, both in Zendesk and Intercom. What about that internal wiki in Confluence or Notion that your product team lives in? Or the hundreds of troubleshooting guides floating around in Google Docs?

An infographic showing how knowledge is siloed across different apps versus a unified approach where all sources are connected.

An import doesn't bring any of that over. You've just moved one knowledge silo into a new building, while the others are still out in the field. This means your agents, and any AI you’re using, are still flying with incomplete information. It leads to inconsistent answers and agents wasting precious time digging through different apps to find what they need.

The never-ending chore of content maintenance

So, your content has a new home in Intercom. That’s awesome. The not-so-awesome part? You still have to manually maintain it all. The work of updating articles, spotting what's outdated, and figuring out what new docs to write hasn't gone away, it has just moved to a different app.

This usually leads to a frustrating cycle of trying to analyze which articles are underperforming, guessing what customers are searching for, and writing new content hoping it hits the mark. It's a reactive process that always feels like you're one step behind what your customers actually need.

Powering up your AI is harder than you think

Let's be real: a big reason you're probably doing this is to feed an AI bot, like Intercom's Fin. But here's the thing about AI, it's only as good as the information you give it.

If you only feed it the help center articles you just imported, you're tying its hands behind its back. The AI is missing out on the context from thousands of resolved support tickets, the deep technical details in your engineering docs, or even the quick workarounds your team shares in Slack. What you end up with is an AI that can handle basic FAQs but has to escalate almost everything else to a human agent, which kind of defeats the purpose.

A different approach: Unify your knowledge without the need to import Zendesk help center to Intercom

So what if you could skip the whole migration mess? Instead of moving all your files from one cabinet to another, what if you could give your team a master key that opens every cabinet instantly? That’s the idea behind eesel AI. It connects to all your knowledge sources and unifies them, without you having to move a single article.

Get started in minutes

Forget about waiting for imports or syncs to finish. With eesel AI, you can use one-click integrations for Zendesk, Intercom, and over 100 other tools your team already uses.

The eesel AI platform showing the simple one-click process to connect various knowledge sources like Zendesk, Intercom, and more.

There’s no need to "rip and replace" anything. You can keep using Intercom as your helpdesk but give it superpowers by connecting it to all your other knowledge. Best of all, you can set it all up yourself. Sign up, connect your apps, and see it working in minutes, no sales calls or mandatory demos required.

Connect everything, not just your help center

This is the key difference. eesel AI doesn't just move your help center; it connects to all your company knowledge to create a single brain for your support team. It learns from everywhere, including:

• Both your Zendesk Help Center and your Intercom articles.

• Historical tickets from both platforms, so it can learn from past resolutions and adopt your brand's voice.

• Internal knowledge sources like Confluence, Google Docs, and even internal team chats in Slack.

This means your AI and your agents have all the relevant info at their fingertips, leading to faster, more accurate, and more complete answers for your customers.

See how it works before you import

One of the scariest parts of launching a new system is the uncertainty. How will it actually perform? eesel AI removes the guesswork with a simulation mode. You can test your AI on thousands of your past tickets in a safe environment. You’ll see exactly how it would have replied, get solid forecasts on how many tickets it can resolve on its own, and spot any gaps in your knowledge before it ever interacts with a customer.

A screenshot of the eesel AI simulation mode, showing how it tests the AI's performance on past tickets before deployment.

You also get full control over how you roll it out. Instead of flipping a switch and hoping for the best, you can start small. Let the AI handle just a couple of simple, repetitive questions, like "where's my order?", and have it pass everything else to a human. As you get more comfortable, you can gradually let it handle more.

Should you import Zendesk help center to Intercom or unify?

Look, moving your Zendesk articles into Intercom is a totally valid plan. It can clean up your toolkit, and the steps we laid out will get you there without much fuss.

But before you dive in, it's worth asking if a simple content move actually solves your root problem. If your goal is just to have your help articles in Intercom, an import is perfect. But if your real goal is to give your team and your AI access to all your company knowledge to resolve issues faster and more accurately, just moving one piece of the puzzle isn't enough.

Instead of a big migration project, you could spend a few minutes connecting your tools to eesel AI and get a much bigger win for your team and your customers.