AI agents are available in a number of Zendesk products and integrations. This article is a guide to all the ways you can use AI agents and where to find more information on adding AI agents to your toolbox.
This article includes the following topics:
- Autoreplies with articles in Support emails
- Autoreplies in Support emails
- Autoreplies with articles in web forms
- AI agents for messaging in the Web Widget
- Advanced AI agents embedded in your website
- AI agents for messaging in mobile SDKs
- Suggested articles in Knowledge in the context panel
- Zendesk AI agents for Slack
- Zendesk AI agents for Microsoft Teams
- Zendesk AI agents in Web Widget (Classic)
- APIs for AI agents
Related articles:
Autoreplies with articles in Support emails
The most basic AI agent functionality is the automated email response containing article suggestions. These are sometimes referred to as AI agents for email.
In Zendesk Support, when an end user submits a support request via email, they receive an auto-response that acknowledges their request and includes a list of articles from your help center that can help the requester solve their own issue:
If a suggested article answers their question, the end user can close their support request; if no article addresses the problem, the support request remains in the ticket queue to be answered by an agent.
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Autoreplies in Support emails
You can also create advanced email autoreplies. These types of autoreplies are also sometimes called AI agents for email, and attempt to directly answer the customer’s request using comment text prewritten by an admin and triggered based on specified conditions. Autoreplies can be triggered based on any available condition, but are especially helpful when based on intelligent triage predictions about intent, language, and sentiment.
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Autoreplies with articles in web forms
You can add autoreplies with articles to your web-based ticket forms as well. These are sometimes referred to as AI agents for web forms.
When enabled, if an end user submits a support request through your help center’s submission form, a pop-up modal offers them suggestions for articles that they may find useful:
As with the emailed suggestions, if any article in the modal answers the end user’s question, they can close the support request with no input from an agent; if it doesn’t, their request remains in the ticket queue.
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AI agents for messaging in the Web Widget
An AI agent for messaging is a dynamic, customizable bot that helps guide customers to a resolution. You can add an AI agent to the messaging Web Widget, letting it offer 24/7 support on a website or help center.
You can create an AI agent in any style that suits your organization, from a simple greeting to welcome customers to your support center before handing them over to a live agent, to a complex AI agent that gathers customer data, routes conversations to specific agents, proactively notifies customers of updates or changes, and more.
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Advanced AI agents embedded in your website
If you have the AI agents - Advanced add-on, you can create advanced AI agents that allow you to automate more complex customer queries, create scripted conversation flows for specific scenarios, integrate with other systems to fully automate requests, and benefit from in-depth reporting on your AI agent usage and automation rates.
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AI agents for messaging in mobile SDKs
AI agents for messaging can be a part of your mobile support offering. Our mobile SDKs make it easy to integrate into any mobile app, answering customer questions in-context without them ever having to leave the app or disrupt their experience. Users can mark the articles as "solving" their issues, or indicate they still need help and want to escalate their issue to a Support ticket.
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Suggested articles in Knowledge in the context panel
Agents can use the knowledge section of the context panelwhile working with tickets to conveniently get information and answers relevant to the conversation they're in.
The knowledge section uses AI agents to automatically provide relevant suggestions agents can use to answer questions in tickets. Agents can use the knowledge section to access your knowledge base and community forums, search for external content, and take actions related to content while working on tickets without leaving the ticket interface.
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Zendesk AI agents for Slack
When enabled in the Slack for Zendesk Support integration, the AI agent can "listen in" on questions posed in any Slack channel configured to use the Support integration and offer relevant article suggestions:
Users can indicate whether the offered article is useful to them by clicking the Yes or No buttons. If more than one article is found, they can click the More suggestions button to view additional articles.
If their question is not answered by any of the articles offered, they can submit a Support ticket:
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Zendesk AI agents for Microsoft Teams
When enabled in the Zendesk integration for Microsoft Teams, the AI agent can provide article suggestions when a user asks a question as a new conversation:
By default, the AI agent is turned off in channels. An admin or agent can use the answer bot command in a channel to turn on the AI agent and manage settings for that channel, such as filter article recommendations by help center, labels, or user segments.
If the AI agent doesn't have an answer, it will prompt the user to create a ticket.
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Zendesk AI agents in Web Widget (Classic)
If you have the Web Widget (Classic) installed on your help center or website, your customers can receive article suggestions whenever they need help across your site, in a conversational way.
Escalation options to a human agent can always be made available, such as requesting a callback, live chat or leaving a message.
More information:
APIs for AI agents
The Answer Bot API enables businesses to extend AI-powered self-service help to any channel. Developers can build their own self-service automation experiences wherever they’d like. When implemented correctly, users can quickly and easily mark their questions as resolved or not resolved, giving you more data for reporting, and improving the AI agent model over time.
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13 comments
Jon Simone
In this article it mentions that customers can request a callback through answerbot: "Escalation options to a human agent can always be made available, such as requesting a callback, live chat or leaving a message". How does this work? I do not see this option in the flow builder.
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Jennifer Rowe
Hi @..., it is a bit confusing, I'm sorry. So those options are available if you are using the Web Widget, but they are not available in Flow Builder, which works with messaging and the Web SDK (as opposed to the Web Widget). Hope that helps!
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Jon Simone
Jennifer Rowe is the plan for Flow Builder to replace Web Widget eventually?
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Jennifer Rowe
Jon Simone
When I wrote the comment above the new version of the Web Widget (that worked with messaging, including FlowBuilder) was called Web SDK. We have since relabeled the original Web Widget as "Web Widget Classic" and there is an updated version called Web Widget (not Web SDK anymore).
So no, FlowBuilder is not replacing Web Widget. But the new version of Web Widget, if you are using messaging, enables you to use FlowBuilder.
I hope that makes sense! Let me know.
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Timothy Beutler
Hello! We have been testing using AB in our Web Form and Email. Are these exclusive, or can they be used in both areas simultaneously?
Thank you!
- Tim
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FINANCIERA UENO SAECA
Hello
Is there a way to get the answerbot to send action buttons trough whatsapp?
We currently have Enterprise licence + Sunshine for notifications.
This is the kind of message i get from my app connected to SunCo
But this is what i get from Answerbot
Those yes/no options should be in buttons, not in text
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Dane
Unfortunately, adding answer bot buttons is not natively supported in WhatsApp.
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FINANCIERA UENO SAECA
Thank you
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Raphaël Péguet - Officers.fr
Hi Zendesk,
Can (and how) Answer Bot can crawl between several help center please?
(especially for the messaging experience)
Thank you,
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Marine
Currently Answer Bot doesn’t work across brands/help centers.
Answer Bot will suggest articles from the brand associated.
If you'd like to explain your use case and give your feedback I can encourage you to post it in our community here.
Hope this answers your question!
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Charlene Javier
Hi Team,
Is it possible to use an Answer Bot if we have multiple Brands via ZD?
Seems as though we can being that there are Channels now added.
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Raphaël Péguet - Officers.fr
Marine thanks ! I succeeded via an API call,
Charlene Javier of course :-)
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Quinn Hayhurst
Hi there, I have two chatbots (not live) - one for current clients and one for prospective clients. Is it possible for current clients to only interact with the client bot, and have non-clients interact with the other? if so, how?
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