How to use Zendesk AI to summarize long threads before escalation

We’ve all been there. A ticket gets escalated to you, and it’s a complete mess. You see a chain of twenty replies, a handful of different agents have already touched it, and the customer is, understandably, losing their patience. Before you can even start to solve the actual problem, you have to spend the next ten minutes just playing detective, trying to piece together the story from the thread.

That manual digging is a huge time-sink. It eats up valuable agent hours, slows down fixes for tricky issues, and makes internal handoffs way more painful than they need to be. But what if you could just skip all that reading and get a perfect summary every single time a ticket needs to be escalated?

Here’s a practical guide on how to use Zendesk AI to summarize long threads before escalation. We’ll start with the tool that’s already built into Zendesk, and then I’ll show you a much slicker, fully automated way to get it done without anyone having to lift a finger.

What you'll need to get started

Before we jump in, let’s quickly go over what you’ll need to follow along. Make sure you have:

• A Zendesk account on the Suite Professional plan or higher. This is what gives you access to Zendesk's own AI features.

• Admin permissions for your Zendesk account, so you can connect and set up new apps.

• An eesel AI account for the automated workflow. You can grab a free trial and get set up in a couple of minutes.

A step-by-step guide to summarizing threads before escalation

We're going to look at two ways to generate these summaries. First up is Zendesk's own Agent Copilot, which is fine for one-off summaries but needs a manual click every time. The second method uses eesel AI to build a "set it and forget it" workflow that automatically summarizes tickets the second they’re flagged for escalation.

Step 1: Manually summarize tickets with Agent Copilot

Zendesk's Agent Copilot is a handy assistant baked right into the agent workspace. It has a few AI tools, including a summarizer. If you just need a quick summary of a single ticket and don't mind doing it yourself, this is a decent place to start.

Here's how it works:

1. Open any ticket in Zendesk that has a bit of a conversation history.

2. Look for the context panel on the right-hand side. You should see a section called Copilot.

3. Click the Summarize button. The AI will scan the conversation and spit out a short summary of what's happened so far.

Once it's ready, your agent can copy that summary, paste it into an internal note, and then reassign the ticket. It’s simple and gets the job done for a quick overview, but it has some pretty big drawbacks.

Step 2: Recognize the limits of manual summarization

While the summarize button is a nice touch, it doesn't fix the real problem because it's completely manual. For a busy support team, that creates a few headaches:

• It relies on memory. An agent has to remember to click that button every single time they escalate a ticket. You can't trigger it automatically when a status changes or a tag is added, so it's bound to be inconsistent.

• It's no help for old tickets. You can't easily go back and generate summaries for solved or closed tickets. This makes it tough to do quality checks or look at past escalation patterns without reopening everything.

• True automation gets technical, fast. If you wanted to build a genuinely automated summary workflow using only Zendesk's tools, you'd be looking at some complex workarounds with custom actions and API calls. That’s usually too much for a support manager to build and keep up with.

For teams that need a process they can count on, a manual click-to-summarize button is just a temporary fix, not a long-term solution.

Step 3: Connect eesel AI to automate your workflow

Okay, so if the manual button isn’t cutting it, what’s the alternative? Let's talk about automation. This is where you can go from one-off clicks to a workflow that runs on its own. eesel AI is built to plug the gaps left by native tools, integrating right into your helpdesk to handle the repetitive stuff for you.

One of the best things about eesel AI is how simple it is. You can get it working in minutes, not months. You don't need developers or someone who understands APIs. You just connect it to your Zendesk account with a single click.

Start by signing up for an eesel AI account, then head over to the integrations gallery and find Zendesk. Once you authorize the connection, eesel AI is ready to start learning from your helpdesk and automating your workflows.

Step 4: Set up the automated summarization workflow

Now for the fun part. With eesel AI connected, you can build a workflow that automatically creates a summary whenever a ticket gets escalated, with no human intervention needed. You get to decide exactly when and how it happens using a simple workflow builder.

Here's a common setup:

1. Choose Your Trigger: First, you tell the system what "escalation" looks like for your team. This could be when:

   • A ticket's status is changed to "Pending Escalation".

   • A specific tag like "escalate_to_tier_2" gets added.

   • A ticket is assigned to a certain group, like "Tier 2 Support."

2. Define the Action: Next, you tell eesel AI what to do when that trigger fires. You can have it:

   • Generate a summary of the entire conversation (public and internal comments).

   • Add the summary as an internal note right on the ticket.

   • (Optional) Re-assign the ticket to the correct escalation group automatically.

This straightforward rule makes sure every single escalated ticket lands with the next agent with a clean, consistent summary already attached. No more manual work.

Step 5: Test your new summarization workflow

"But how can I trust an AI to get the summaries right?" Fair question. Before you switch your new workflow on, you can use eesel AI’s simulation mode to see how it will perform.

This feature is a bit like a dress rehearsal for your automation. It lets you test your rules on thousands of your past tickets in a safe environment. You can see exactly how eesel AI would have summarized previous escalations, check the quality, and get a solid forecast of how well it will work. This lets you tweak your prompts and settings with confidence before the system ever touches a live ticket. It's the opposite of the typical "build and pray" approach to launching new tools.

Pro tips for automated thread summarization

An automated summary is already a big win, but with a few small tweaks, you can make them even more useful.

Stop summarizing and start solving

Let's face it, manually summarizing long, complicated tickets is a thankless job that slows your whole team down. It’s a bottleneck that keeps your best agents from focusing on the problems they’re actually there to solve.

While Zendesk’s native Copilot gives you a manual starting point, real efficiency comes from smart automation. By using a tool like eesel AI, you can set up a completely hands-off workflow that guarantees every escalated ticket shows up with a perfect summary, every single time.

By following the steps here, you can build a reliable process that gets rid of one of the most tedious tasks in your escalation workflow. It gives your agents back precious time, cuts down on resolution times, and lets your team focus on what they do best: helping customers.

Automate your Zendesk workflows with eesel AI

Ready to stop writing manual ticket summaries and streamline your escalations for good? eesel AI connects directly with Zendesk to automate your most repetitive support tasks, from summarization and triage to drafting entire replies for your agents.

You can be up and running in minutes. Sign up for a free trial of eesel AI today and see for yourself how easy it is to build a smarter, faster support workflow.