Zendesk launches AI-powered voice agents and analytics upgrades
Zendesk has rolled out new AI capabilities across its Resolution Platform to help customer service and employee support teams solve issues faster. The platform handles nearly 5 billion issues a year, with AI Agents now taking on a meaningful share across channels. Zendesk says nearly 20,000 customers use its AI products and expects $200M in AI ARR this year.
What's new: AI and automation that resolves, not just responds
- Fully autonomous Voice AI Agents: Understand natural speech, take actions, and resolve end-to-end without handing off to a human unless needed.
- Admin Copilot: A proactive assistant for admins that surfaces summaries, insights, recommendations, and setup guidance through conversation.
- Action Builder: Create workflows and automations with connectors to OpenAI, Shopify, and Confluence, with Microsoft Excel, Teams, and Outlook coming soon.
- App Builder: Build and deploy custom agent apps without coding.
- Knowledge Connectors: Integrate content from Google Drive and SharePoint to avoid heavy migrations.
- Knowledge Builder: Use AI to generate and maintain articles from past tickets and business context to fill content gaps automatically.
- Advanced Insights (HyperArc): Next-gen analytics that blend human and machine analysis to spot trends and uncover root causes.
Contact centre and employee service updates
- Video calling and screen sharing: Agents can see what customers see and resolve complex issues in real time.
- Voice AI in the Contact Centre: Autonomous voice capabilities brought directly into Zendesk's contact centre solution.
- IT asset management integration: Full visibility into company-issued hardware inside Zendesk to speed up IT ticket resolution.
- Service catalogue + Microsoft Copilot integration: Easier employee access to services and support within tools they already use.
Why this matters for support leaders
This release pushes beyond faster replies and focuses on first-contact resolution, containment, and deflection with quality. It also tightens the loop between knowledge, automation, and analytics so you can fix root causes-not just handle volume.
- Track what changes: containment rate, time-to-resolution, agent handle time, CSAT, and recontact rate.
- Strengthen guardrails: clear escalation rules, compliance checks, and audit trails for AI actions.
- Operationalize knowledge: keep articles fresh with Knowledge Builder and map them to high-volume intents.
- Use Advanced Insights to prioritize fixes that remove repeat contacts and reduce avoidable effort.
Market perspective
Tom Eggemeier, CEO at Zendesk: "Customers want issues fully resolved. While many speak of AI as a distant promise, Zendesk is distinguished by our tangible, realized products already reshaping service today... We're committed to helping customers cut through complexity and create lasting impact."
Sudhir Rajagopal, Research Director at IDC: "Zendesk is setting itself apart... The combination of AI Agents with an integrated platform covering Contact Centres and Employee Service drives tangible business results. With HyperArc's AI-driven analytics, Zendesk improves its ability to address challenges in service operations."
How to pilot this in your org
- Start with 3-5 call types that have clear actions and knowledge coverage (billing updates, order status, password resets).
- Define escalation paths for ambiguity, PII risk, or negative sentiment.
- Instrument everything: measure containment, CSAT deltas, error categories, and agent effort saved.
- Close the loop: feed unresolved intents back into Action Builder workflows and Knowledge Builder articles.
- Train agents and admins on prompts, exception handling, and analytics reviews.
For product details and documentation, see Zendesk AI.
If you're upskilling your team on AI workflows, prompts, and automation for support, explore curated learning paths at Complete AI Training.
Bottom line
Zendesk's updates connect autonomous voice, knowledge, workflow automation, and analytics into one motion. For support leaders, the opportunity is clear: scope small, measure hard, and scale what consistently resolves issues on the first touch.
