A complete guide to the Zendesk new AI agent features & pricing in 2026

Zendesk has announced a new generation of AI agents, and they're delivering on an impressive promise: to resolve over 80% of interactions. This isn't just another chatbot. They've built a mature platform on "agentic AI" that can reason, adapt, and act to solve complex issues.

So, what does this actually mean for your support team in 2026? In this guide, we'll explore what the Zendesk new AI agent is, its core features, its tiered pricing structure, and how to effectively implement it.

What is the Zendesk new AI agent?

To really appreciate what Zendesk has built, you have to understand the term "agentic AI." Unlike older bots that just follow rigid, pre-written scripts, Zendesk's agentic AI is designed to be more capable. It can reason, make a plan, and carry out tasks to solve a problem, all on its own. These new AI agents move beyond simple ticket deflection and focus on actually resolving issues from start to finish.

Instead of just providing a help article, these agents can handle sophisticated conversations with multiple steps, figure out customer intent, and connect with other systems to resolve problems completely. This is powered by a reliable mix of industry-leading Large Language Models (LLMs) from companies like OpenAI and Zendesk's own specialized models. This allows the AI to handle conversations naturally, manage complex requests, and work seamlessly across all your channels, from messaging and email to voice.

This represents a significant evolution in the customer service space, providing a robust solution for teams looking to scale.

Key features of the Zendesk new AI agent

Zendesk's AI platform is a comprehensive collection of tools. Some are designed for full automation, while others provide powerful assistance to your human agents. It’s helpful to distinguish between the fully autonomous AI agents and the "Copilot" features, as they offer complementary benefits.

Autonomous frontline support

The centerpiece is the fully autonomous AI agent. Zendesk highlights that these can handle up to 80% of customer chats, emails, and messages efficiently.

• Omnichannel support: These agents are versatile, working across email, web, mobile, and social media. Zendesk has also introduced Voice AI Agents that can handle phone calls with natural, fluid conversations.

• Generative replies: The AI utilizes your knowledge sources, like a Zendesk help center, to provide customers with instant, accurate answers. This is the foundation of the "Essential" tier.

• Agentic reasoning and actions: For more complex workflows, the "Advanced" tier allows the AI to manage multi-step processes and connect to other systems through APIs to reach a resolution.

Copilot tools to assist human agents

For tickets that require a human touch, Zendesk has a Copilot to help your team work with greater precision.

• Context and summaries: Human agents receive AI-generated summaries of ticket histories, allowing them to get up to speed quickly without reading through long threads.

• Suggested replies and actions: The Copilot provides helpful drafts for agents based on historical ticket resolutions and knowledge base content. It can also suggest appropriate macros.

• Tone adjustment: Agents can use the AI to refine their replies, ensuring the tone is perfectly aligned with your brand voice, whether it needs to be more formal or more friendly.

Admin Copilot and analytics for managers

Zendesk has also provided powerful AI tools specifically for management.

• Admin Copilot: This acts as a sophisticated assistant for managers, providing daily digests of priorities and highlighting important performance trends.

• Quality Assurance (QA): The AI-powered QA tool can review conversations automatically, whether handled by a human or the AI. This helps identify coaching opportunities and ensures high quality standards are maintained.

Pricing and structure

Zendesk offers a tiered pricing model designed to provide clear value and scale alongside your business. It combines usage-based pricing for automation with a per-agent structure for assist tools.

Service tiers: Essential vs. Advanced

As outlined in Zendesk's documentation, the AI agent capabilities are organized into two levels to suit different needs. The "Essential" tier focuses on generative answers from your knowledge base, while the "Advanced" tier introduces sophisticated "agentic" capabilities.

Feature	AI Agents - Essential	AI Agents - Advanced
Availability	Included in all Zendesk Suite plans	Paid add-on for any Suite plan
Primary Use Case	Generative replies from knowledge sources	Complex, multi-step resolutions
Key Technology	Generative AI (RAG)	Agentic AI, conversation flows, integrations
Setup	Quick setup in minutes	Designed for tailored use cases and flows
Integrations	No	Yes (API access and orchestration)
Analytics	Basic reporting (resolutions, transfers)	Advanced analytics (use case performance)

The pricing model

Zendesk uses a usage-based model for its AI automations, ensuring you pay for the results you achieve.

• Automated Resolutions (ARs): Zendesk charges for each ticket the AI successfully resolves without human intervention. The standard rate is $2.00 per resolution, with volume-based discounts available for larger commitments. This ensures your investment is directly tied to successful customer outcomes.

• Copilot Add-on Cost: The specialized Copilot features for agents are available as an add-on for $50 per agent per month.

• Team-wide Empowerment: To ensure a consistent and high-quality support experience, the Copilot add-on is typically applied to all agents on a plan. This empowers the entire team with the same set of advanced AI tools.

Considerations for success

While Zendesk’s new AI is a powerful platform, achieving the best results involves some standard best practices common to any enterprise-grade AI implementation.

Optimizing your knowledge base

The performance of the Zendesk new AI agent is at its best when it has access to a high-quality Zendesk Help Center. Zendesk's guide for getting started with advanced AI recommends that users "Optimize help center content" as a first step. Centralizing your knowledge within Zendesk ensures the AI has a reliable and comprehensive source of truth to pull from.

For teams that may have knowledge distributed across multiple platforms like Google Docs, Confluence, or Notion, there are complementary tools that can help. For instance, eesel AI is an option that can work alongside Zendesk to help bridge decentralized knowledge sources while you continue to build out your primary Zendesk Help Center.

Integrating within the Zendesk ecosystem

Zendesk's AI is built to work flawlessly with data inside the Zendesk platform. For the "Advanced" tier to interact with external systems like Shopify or custom databases, Zendesk provides a robust API framework. This is a powerful feature for making AI agents capable of performing actions like checking order statuses or processing refunds.

If you are looking for additional ways to connect decentralized information, eesel AI is a complementary tool that can assist in connecting various knowledge sources to your support environment, working in harmony with your Zendesk setup.

Setting up advanced features

While the basic AI agent is very straightforward to enable, the "Advanced" features allow for deep customization. Managers can define specific use cases and build custom conversation flows. Zendesk provides extensive documentation on their integration builder and API requirements to help teams set up these sophisticated workflows.

For teams looking for a simple way to test their AI strategy, the eesel AI Agent is a helpful complementary tool. It allows you to simulate how AI might answer past tickets, providing an extra layer of confidence as you refine your Zendesk setup.

To see how these industry-leading features come together, the following video from Zendesk provides an excellent overview of their AI agents and the value they bring to modern support teams.

A video from Zendesk demonstrating the capabilities and benefits of their new AI agents.

Is the Zendesk new AI agent right for your team?

The Zendesk new AI agent is an impressive and capable platform. It represents the gold standard of where customer service is headed in 2026. For businesses that want a mature, reliable, and enterprise-grade ecosystem, Zendesk offers a clear path toward high levels of automation and efficiency.

By centralizing your knowledge and leveraging Zendesk's powerful agentic capabilities, you can significantly enhance your customer experience. Exploring complementary tools like eesel AI can also provide additional ways to test and expand your automation strategy as you make the most of the Zendesk ecosystem.