Zendesk advanced AI entity extraction: A practical overview

Let's be real, your support team is probably handling a lot of copy-paste work. Manually digging for order numbers, email addresses, and product codes in tickets can be time-consuming and pulls your team away from actually helping people. It's the kind of repetitive task that many teams look to automate to help their staff perform at their best.

This is exactly the problem entity extraction is designed to solve. It’s a sophisticated AI feature that automatically spots and organizes this key data, freeing up your agents to focus on high-value interactions.

In this article, we’ll take a practical look at Zendesk's built-in entity extraction feature. We'll break down what it is, how it works, and how to maximize its value while considering complementary tools for a more flexible and powerful setup.

What is Zendesk advanced AI entity extraction?

Zendesk advanced AI entity extraction is a feature in Zendesk's Advanced AI add-on that automatically finds and labels specific bits of information (or "entities") inside of a customer message. Think of it as a smart highlighter for your support tickets and chats.

The goal is to turn unstructured customer questions into usable data. Once that information is organized, you can use it to automate workflows, get tickets to the right people, and give customers faster, more accurate answers.

Zendesk provides a robust system by breaking entities down into two main types:

• Preset entities: These are ready to go right out of the box. They’re designed to identify common things like email addresses, credit card numbers, and social security numbers. No configuration needed.

• Custom entities: These allow you to tailor the AI for data specific to your business, like order numbers, tracking IDs, or unique product names. This gives you precise control over how your specific data is handled.

Key features and capabilities of Zendesk advanced AI entity extraction

So, what can you actually do with this feature? Let’s get into its core functions and how they plug into the industry-leading Zendesk system.

Preset vs. custom entities

Preset entities are incredibly handy for dealing with personally identifiable information (PII) immediately. If a customer happens to include a credit card number in a message, Zendesk can spot and hide it automatically.

For anything unique to your business, you can create custom entities yourself. This allows for deep customization using professional methods like:

• Regular Expressions (RegEx): This defines a specific search pattern. It's excellent for spotting predictable formats, like an order number that always starts with "ORD-" followed by five digits.

• Lists: You can also provide a list of specific terms to look for, such as product names or common service categories like "delivery" or "warranty."

This rule-based setup ensures high accuracy, as the system follows the exact logic you define. It provides a reliable way to manage business-specific data as your company grows.

Sanitizing sensitive data

One of the most valuable uses for entity extraction is maintaining high standards of data security. You can set up Zendesk to automatically find an entity like a credit card number and replace it with a placeholder.

This is a significant advantage for compliance and security. It helps keep sensitive customer info secure within agent views and ticket histories, supporting your privacy standards automatically.

Integration into conversation flows

The real strength comes when you use this extracted data to drive action. Once an entity is identified, it becomes a piece of information your AI agents or automation rules can work with.

For example, if an AI agent spots an "order_number" in a customer's message, it can trigger an action to look up that order in your backend system. This allows the bot to provide real-time status updates, moving the conversation from a simple Q&A to active, efficient problem-solving.

graph TD A[Customer message: "What's the status of order ORD-12345?"] --> B{Entity Extraction identifies 'ORD-12345' as order_number}; B --> C[AI Agent triggers 'Check Order Status' action]; C --> D[System looks up order in backend]; D --> E[AI Agent provides real-time update to customer];

Practical use cases and benefits in customer support

Entity extraction makes a tangible difference in a team's day-to-day operations. Here’s how it strengthens your support setup.

Automating ticket triage and routing

When configured well, entities help streamline ticket management. If a ticket mentions a specific product name, you can create a rule that automatically routes it to the expert team for that product.

Similarly, if an entity related to "cancellation" is identified, the ticket can be tagged as high priority to ensure it gets immediate attention. This helps ensure that the most critical issues are handled by the right people at the right time.

Powering more intelligent AI agents

With entities, your AI agent can understand the specific details of a request, not just the general intent.

For instance, a customer might write, "My new camera arrived damaged." A sophisticated AI agent can respond by asking for the serial number. It then uses entity extraction to verify the format before proceeding, ensuring the information collected is accurate for the support team.

Improving agent speed and accuracy

This technology helps human agents too. Instead of scanning long threads for a tracking ID, that number can be automatically identified and placed in a custom field.

This improves average handle time by removing the need for manual searching and helps prevent errors that can occur during manual data entry. It gives agents more time to focus on delivering high-quality service.

Considerations for implementation

While Zendesk's entity extraction is a powerful tool, there are a few considerations to keep in mind to get the most out of it.

Setup involves specific configuration

Setting up custom entities in Zendesk allows for high precision, but it does require some time for initial configuration, especially when using RegEx. This manual oversight ensures that the AI follows your exact business logic. Because it is a rule-based system, it provides a stable and predictable performance for your most important workflows.

Connecting external knowledge sources

Zendesk's AI is exceptionally strong at using information within your Zendesk Help Center. However, many companies have useful knowledge stored in various locations.

If your troubleshooting guides are in Confluence or your product updates are in Google Docs, you might find that adding a complementary tool like eesel AI helps bridge these gaps. It works alongside Zendesk to ensure your AI has access to the widest possible range of information.

Investing in the advanced AI add-on

These advanced features are available as a specialized "Advanced AI" add-on. This is an enterprise-grade investment that brings a wealth of capability to your Zendesk Suite.

For teams looking for additional flexibility or a different pricing structure, eesel AI is an excellent complementary option. It connects directly to your Zendesk setup, allowing you to expand your AI capabilities with a simple integration.

Feature	Zendesk Advanced AI	eesel AI
Setup	Precision rule-based (RegEx, lists)	Self-serve, learns from past tickets
Knowledge sources	Focused on Zendesk Help Center	100+ sources (Confluence, GDocs, Notion, etc.)
Integration	Seamless, built-in add-on	One-click integration with your helpdesk
Testing	Standard deployment workflows	Simulation on historical tickets

Zendesk advanced AI pricing

Zendesk offers "Advanced AI" as a powerful add-on to their Suite plans. According to their pricing page, you can work with their sales team to find the best fit for your organization. This ensures that the plan is tailored to your specific scale and needs.

In addition to Zendesk's offerings, eesel AI provides transparent pricing options that some teams find helpful for budgeting and planning. You can choose the plan that best fits your interaction volume and integration requirements.

Plan	Price (Billed Annually)	Key Features
Team	$239 / month	Up to 3 bots, 1,000 AI interactions/mo, Train on docs/websites
Business	$639 / month	Unlimited bots, 3,000 AI interactions/mo, Train on past tickets, AI Actions
Custom	Contact Sales	Unlimited interactions, Advanced actions, Custom integrations

A complementary approach: unifying knowledge with eesel AI

eesel AI is designed to work within the Zendesk ecosystem to provide even more options for support automation.

Quick setup and learning

One of eesel AI's strengths is its ability to complement your existing setup quickly. You can connect your helpdesk and allow the AI to train on your past tickets automatically. This means it can learn from your team's historical expertise to provide context-aware support from day one.

Unify all your knowledge

eesel AI allows you to connect to over 100 different sources, expanding the reach of your support automation.

For example, if a customer asks about an internal process documented in Confluence, an eesel AI agent can retrieve that information and provide a helpful answer within Zendesk, ensuring your team has the most complete information at their fingertips.

Risk-free simulation

To ensure high quality, eesel AI includes a simulation mode. This allows you to run the AI against your past tickets to see how it would have performed. This dashboard helps you forecast success and refine your responses before going live, giving you full confidence in your automation strategy.

Enhancing your Zendesk advanced AI entity extraction setup

Zendesk advanced AI entity extraction is a robust and reliable starting point for any team looking to automate data recognition. It provides the mature, enterprise-grade features that modern support teams depend on.

To get the most out of your automation, consider how tools like eesel AI can work alongside Zendesk to unify knowledge from every part of your company. Together, they turn your collective knowledge into your most powerful support asset.

Ready to see how to further enhance your support automation? Try eesel AI for free or book a demo to see it in action.

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