A practical guide to your Zendesk GPT setup

If you're in customer support, you’ve probably heard the chatter about AI. The idea of using GPT to automatically answer tickets, sort through queries, and give your team some breathing room sounds pretty amazing. But when you start looking into an actual Zendesk GPT setup, it's easy to get bogged down in the details.

Suddenly, you're facing questions you didn't expect. Do you need to hire a developer? Are you about to get locked into a pricing plan that punishes you for being successful? And how can you be sure this whole thing will even work before you flip the switch for your customers?

This guide is here to help you figure it out. We're going to walk through the three main ways you can get GPT working with Zendesk: building it yourself, using Zendesk’s own tools, or plugging in a specialized platform. We’ll look at the good, the bad, and the hidden costs of each, so you can pick the path that actually makes sense for your team, your customers, and your budget.

What is a Zendesk GPT setup?

First off, let's get on the same page about what we're talking about. A Zendesk GPT setup isn't about your agents having a ChatGPT tab open to copy and paste answers. It's about properly plugging a smart AI, powered by Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) models, right into your Zendesk workflow.

It’s like giving your support system a brain that’s been trained on your company’s specific knowledge. This AI can then:

• Read an incoming ticket and understand what the customer is actually asking, nuance and all.

• Write helpful, human-sounding replies using information from your help center, past tickets, and other documents.

• Give agents a quick summary of a long, complicated ticket thread so they can jump in without reading a novel.

• Handle the boring stuff, like tagging tickets, sending them to the right department, or even closing them out.

The whole point is to have an intelligent assistant working alongside your human agents. It handles the repetitive, easy-to-answer questions, which frees up your team to spend their time and energy on the tricky problems that require a real person.

Three approaches to your Zendesk GPT setup

When you decide to bring GPT into Zendesk, you generally have three routes you can take. Each has its own set of pros and cons, and the best one for you really depends on your team's technical skills, how much you want to spend, and what you hope to achieve down the road.

The DIY approach: Building a custom Zendesk GPT setup

This is the "roll up your sleeves" route. It means using OpenAI's API to build your very own, custom-made application that talks directly to Zendesk. You get total control, but it also comes with the biggest workload.

• What it involves: Your engineering team will be on the hook for everything. They’ll need to write the code that connects the two systems, handle user authentication, build some kind of interface for your agents to use inside Zendesk, and then keep it all running. And trust me, it's not a one-and-done project. Every time Zendesk or OpenAI updates their platform, your team has to go back in and make sure nothing breaks.

• Limitations: This approach is a huge time-sink. It requires developers who could be working on your actual product to instead focus on this internal tool. And it's not just about building it; you have to support it forever. You're also solely responsible for data security, making sure you're compliant with regulations like GDPR, and building your own tools to test if the bot is even working correctly. It quickly becomes a full-blown internal product that you never get to stop maintaining.

The native approach: Using Zendesk's built-in AI

Zendesk has its own AI features built right into the platform. On the surface, this seems like the easiest way to go since you don't have to connect any outside tools. But it's important to look closely at the trade-offs.

• What it involves: You can typically turn on Zendesk's AI features by upgrading to one of their higher-tier "Suite" plans or by purchasing them as an add-ons. These tools are designed to do things like summarize tickets, suggest replies for your agents, and run some basic chatbots.

• Limitations: The biggest catch here is that you're locked into Zendesk's world. Their pricing can get confusing and expensive, fast. It's often based on how many agents you have, plus extra fees for each ticket the AI resolves. This makes your monthly bill hard to predict. You're also limited to their features and can't easily customize the AI's behavior. A major drawback is that you can't really test it on your past tickets before going live, so you're basically flying blind until your customers start interacting with it.

The platform approach for your Zendesk GPT setup

The third option is to use a dedicated AI platform that’s designed to plug right into the tools you already use, including Zendesk. This approach gives you the power of a custom-built solution without the headache of building it from scratch.

• What it involves: Platforms like eesel AI are built for this. You can connect your Zendesk account with a single click. Then, you can tell the AI where to find your knowledge, whether it’s in your official help center, past tickets, internal wikis on Confluence, or even random Google Docs. You manage everything from a simple dashboard, no coding required.

• The advantages: This route is all about speed and control. You can be up and running in minutes instead of months. You get to decide exactly which tickets the AI should handle, what it should say, and how it should act. But the best part is the ability to test safely. For instance, eesel AI has a simulation mode that runs the AI on thousands of your past tickets. It shows you exactly how it would have performed, what percentage of tickets it could have resolved, and how much money you would have saved. This lets you see the real-world impact before a single customer ever talks to it.

A screenshot showing the eesel AI simulation mode, which allows users to test their Zendesk GPT setup on past tickets to predict performance and savings.

A closer look at Zendesk AI pricing and its limitations

Let's talk money, because this is where things can get tricky with the native Zendesk AI approach. While having the features built-in is convenient, the pricing model can create some nasty surprises for teams as they grow.

Zendesk plans usually have a base fee you pay for each agent every month. But the advanced AI tools often cost extra, either as an add-on or through a pay-as-you-go model. For example, you might pay a fee for every ticket the AI successfully resolves on its own. Imagine your bot has a great month and resolves 2,000 tickets. That's fantastic for your customers, but if each resolution costs $2, your bill just jumped by an extra $4,000. That's the kind of budget surprise most managers don't like.

Here's a quick look at Zendesk's standard plans that come with some AI features:

Plan	Price (per agent/month, billed annually)	Key AI Features Included (Essential)
Suite Team	$55	Generative replies, Customizable AI persona, Automated resolution reporting
Suite Professional	$115	All Suite Team features + more help centers, advanced reporting
Suite Enterprise	$169	All Suite Professional features + sandbox, custom roles, approval workflows

This information is from Zendesk's official pricing page as of late 2024.

The real issue here is that your costs can feel disconnected from your budget. In contrast, platforms like eesel AI offer straightforward plans based on a set number of AI interactions per month. You don't get charged extra for successful resolutions, so you can automate as many tickets as possible without dreading the end-of-month invoice. This lets you scale up your support without your costs spiraling out of control.

A screenshot of the eesel AI pricing page, which illustrates a clear and predictable pricing model for a Zendesk GPT setup.

Key considerations for a successful Zendesk GPT setup

No matter which path you end up choosing, there are a few things you need to get right for this to be a success. Keep these points in mind as you map out your plan.

Start with simulation, not speculation

You wouldn't want to unleash a brand-new bot on your customers without having some idea of how it will perform, right? The ability to test your AI on your own historical ticket data is a huge advantage. It lets you see which types of questions are easy for the AI to handle and which ones still need a human touch. This data-driven approach allows you to fine-tune the AI's responses and confidently predict your automation rate before you go live. It turns a guessing game into a calculated decision.

Ensure your knowledge is up to date

Let's be honest, where does your company knowledge really live? Is it all neatly organized in your Zendesk help center? Or is it spread across a dozen Google Docs, a Confluence space the engineering team owns, and a bunch of saved Slack threads?

An AI is basically a student, and it can only learn from the textbooks you give it. If its knowledge sources are incomplete or out of date, it's going to give bad answers. A great Zendesk GPT setup needs to connect to all of your knowledge, wherever it is, and constantly keep itself updated. This is the only way to make sure the AI provides answers that are both correct and current.

An infographic illustrating how a platform-based Zendesk GPT setup connects to multiple knowledge sources like Zendesk, Google Docs, and Confluence.

Prioritize security and data privacy

When you connect an AI to your support system, you're giving it access to sensitive customer conversations and data. You absolutely have to be sure that information is being handled securely. Before you commit to any solution, ask the hard questions about their data policies. Look for things like GDPR compliance, data encryption at rest and in transit, and a clear promise that your company's data won't be used to train other AI models.

Platforms designed for business use, like eesel AI, take this seriously and often provide enterprise-level security features, including options for EU data residency to meet strict compliance needs.

Your roadmap to a smarter Zendesk GPT setup

So, what's the takeaway? Choosing the right Zendesk GPT setup is all about finding the right balance of power, simplicity, and cost for your team.

• The DIY approach gives you complete control, but it's a massive and never-ending project that requires a dedicated technical team.

• The native Zendesk approach is easy to turn on, but you risk getting stuck with a system that's hard to customize and has a surprisingly high, unpredictable price tag.

• The platform approach aims to give you the best of both worlds: a powerful, flexible AI that's simple to set up, safe to test, and comes with a clear, predictable price.

At the end of the day, your goal is to help your support team, not give them another complicated tool to learn and manage. By choosing a solution that you can set up yourself, test with confidence, and connect to all your scattered knowledge, you can build a smarter support system that actually makes everyone's job easier.

Ready to see how a platform approach can transform your support workflows without the complexity? eesel AI lets you go live in minutes and simulate performance on your actual tickets. Get started for free today.