Announced on Rollout starts Rollout ends
May 14, 2026 May 18, 2026 June 1, 2026

Zendesk is committed to providing clear, transparent reporting on the value your AI agents deliver. As AI agents evolve to handle a wider range of customer interactions, we are updating our reporting metrics to give you a more accurate and detailed view of their performance. This change introduces unified conversation statuses and a new distinction between Contained resolutions and Verified resolutions to better reflect the full scope of your AI agents' work.

This announcement contains these topics:

  • Glossary of new terms being introduced
  • What's changing?
  • Change to the automated resolution rate calculation
  • Related interface changes
  • Why is Zendesk making this change?
  • What do I need to do?

Glossary of new terms being introduced

Term Definition
Unassisted conversation The conversation triggered only small talk or system replies (not including successful Generative or Knowledge replies) and no automation was performed.
Assisted escalation The AI agent contributed to the interaction before a human agent completed the resolution.
Contained resolution A meaningful request is handled by the AI agent, without human involvement or follow-up.
Verified resolution A meaningful request is handled by the AI agent, with additional signals confirming the outcome was complete and satisfactory.

What's changing? 

Beginning May 18th, 2026, you’ll start to see a more detailed breakdown of automated outcomes in your AI agents dashboard.

  • Status unification across channels: Zendesk is unifying conversation statuses across all AI agent channels (messaging, email, and voice). Every conversation will fall into one of these categories based on the value of your AI agent: Unassisted, Assisted Escalation and Automated Resolution. The new statuses translate into the new metrics you’ll see in analytics. Refer to this help center announcement for more details. 
  • Changes to automated resolution (AR) %: Zendesk is moving from a single “Automated Resolution” metric to a model that distinguishes between Contained resolutions and Verified resolutions. As a result, you may notice an increase in your AR%. This is because your AR% will now include both Contained and Verified resolutions. You will continue to be billed only for Verified resolutions and Contained resolutions do not consume automated resolutions. 

  • Verified resolution evaluation: Zendesk evaluates automated interactions to distinguish between outcome types, so you can better understand which interactions were handled by AI and which outcomes were confirmed complete and satisfactory.

     

Change to the automated resolution rate calculation

Period Automated resolution rate calculation
Before May 18, 2026 Verified / (Unassisted conversations + Assisted Escalations + Contained + Verified) x 100
After May 18, 2026 (Contained + Verified) / (Unassisted conversations + Assisted Escalations + Contained + Verified) x 100

Related interface changes

To support the new resolution tiers, Support tickets include two new ticket fields to show the new resolution details. These fields are in addition to the existing Resolution type field that shows the resolution was automated.

  • Channel group: This field shows the channel group associated with the resolution. This field has a Digital value for email and messaging channels and a Voice value for voice channels. 
  • Resolution tier: This field shows the level of automation required to solve the ticket. The values are Assisted escalation, Contained resolution, or Verified resolution. 

Resolution tiers also appear in the ticket event log and in the AI agent conversation overview. 

Ticket fields Ticket event log AI agent conversation overview

Why is Zendesk making this change?

As AI agents take on more interactions, customers need a clearer view of what those agents are doing and what outcomes they are delivering. This update provides customers with a more accurate view of AI agent performance, including how much work your AI agents are handling and which outcomes are resolved completely.

The existing status definitions, which were built before agentic AI agents, no longer capture the true value provided by AI agents. Feedback indicates significant ambiguity concerning which statuses translate into billing metrics. By unifying these statuses, we provide a standard framework to measure success and fine-tune your agents across all channels.

What do I need to do? 

  • No immediate action is required: These reporting updates will automatically take effect from May 18th, 2026.
  • Review your updated analytics: You’ll see a breakdown of Contained and Verified Resolutions in your AI agents dashboard and related reporting experiences. 
  • Monitor your automation mix: As your use of AI agents evolves, you’ll have more visibility into how outcomes are distributed across resolution types in the AI agents analytics dashboard. You can see more detail in Support ticket fields. 
  • Historical data consistency: Because the new status definitions are incompatible with the previous ones, we're re-mapping them for historical conversations up to two years back. This mapping will apply to both conversation logs and the reporting dashboard, so your historical data will reflect the new definitions consistently.

If you have feedback or questions related to this announcement, visit our community forum where we collect and manage customer product feedback. For general assistance with your Zendesk products, contact Zendesk Customer Support.


 

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