| Announced on | Rollout starts | Rollout ends |
| May 10, 2023 PDT | May 9, 2023 PDT | May 9, 2023 PDT |
What's changing
Zendesk is streamlining how our bot offerings are presented, priced and packaged. This includes:
- Simplified naming & packaging: We’ve rebranded our bot capabilities from “Answer Bot” to “Zendesk bots”. Zendesk bots come in two versions: standard and advanced.
- Unifying the in-product experience: Customers now have a new single entry point in Admin Center for creating and managing Zendesk bots.
- Usage-based pricing: New usage-based pricing with a metric of monthly active users (MAU) now applies to Zendesk bots for customers on Zendesk Suite plans. This replaces the former resolution-based pricing model.
These changes reflect the evolution of our bot capabilities here at Zendesk. Our goal of rebranding and unifying the in-product experience is to create a consistent, seamless experience for our customers. Zendesk’s new usage-based pricing model is designed to provide you with more flexibility and transparency, and will enable us to continue delivering the value you expect from Zendesk as your business grows.
Simplified naming & packaging
Previously, Answer Bot was the overarching brand that described Zendesk’s set of bot capabilities that help businesses with deflection and conversational automation. Zendesk is saying goodbye to the Answer Bot brand, and no longer using the terms ‘Flow Builder’ and ‘Article Recommendations’ to describe our bot capabilities.
We have rebranded our set of bot capabilities from Answer Bot to Zendesk bots. Zendesk bots come in two versions - standard and advanced - to meet the needs of various business types and sizes.
Standard bots: All of the existing functionality under what was previously Answer Bot’s Article Recommendations and Flow Builder has been repackaged into our standard version of Zendesk bots. The standard version of Zendesk bots remains available to customers on any Zendesk Suite plan.
Standard bots include conversation bots, configured using bot builder, which guide customers to a resolution on a messaging channel before a ticket is created, and autoreplies, which allow the bot to suggest relevant help articles via email and webform in response to a request.
Advanced bots: Zendesk recently released an advanced version of Zendesk bots, an enhanced bot experience for messaging and email, as part of the new Advanced AI add-on. These bots come pre-trained out of the box to understand the top customer issues specific to your industry, resulting in:
- Higher CSAT: These bots detect and classify requests based on the customer intent to deliver the most accurate answer.
- Time savings for admins: Admins get built-in intent suggestions tailored to their industry that can be applied with just a few clicks. This eliminates the time admins are required to spend manually training their bot.
- Faster resolution time: When agents are needed, the bot passes along customer intent information to the ticket along with all the conversation history, helping your teams resolve issues faster.
These advanced capabilities work across both your conversation bots and autoreplies, using the power of AI to increase bot and agent productivity.
Advanced bots are now available to Zendesk customers on Suite Professional plans and above with the Advanced AI add-on.
Learn more about advanced bots and the Advanced AI add-on.
Unifying the bot experience in-product
A single entry point to create and manage bots
Zendesk Suite customers will now have a single entry point to create and manage bots within Zendesk. Under the bots navigation menu item in Admin Center (Channels > Bots and automation > Bots) admins can access a Zendesk bots landing page to manage conversation bots or autoreplies.
Pricing and packaging
New usage-based pricing with a metric of monthly active users (MAU) now applies to Zendesk bots for customers on Zendesk Suite plans. All Zendesk Suite plans come with a baseline amount of MAU included. Customers can purchase MAU usage add-ons on a go forward basis as needed.
A new AI and bots usage dashboard is now available in Admin Center to help you understand your MAU consumption and forecast what may be needed as your business grows. This new dashboard replaces the resolutions dashboard, previously found in the Article Recommendations “overview” tab.
For existing Zendesk Suite customers*, the baseline amount of MAU included in Suite plans has replaced the former baseline amount of Answer Bot resolutions. Customers that were previously paying for resolution add-on bundles will receive the equivalent amount of MAU usage add-on packs. Learn more about MAU pricing.
What do I need to do?
There is no immediate action required. You can start familiarizing yourself with the new admin experience for conversation bots and autoreplies, and monitoring MAU usage for Zendesk bots via the new dashboard in Admin Center.
You will notice our rebranding changes are in progress across the Zendesk bots product experience, help center, etc. There may be a short window of time where a mix of the old and new terminology co-exist.
Note: These pricing changes will not impact existing customers* until their next renewal, and no sooner than September 2023.
*Customers using Zendesk bots functionality prior to May 10, 2023.
Additional resources:
- About Monthly Active Users for Zendesk bots
- Community: Regarding upcoming changes to Answer Bot and Flow Builder
- About Zendesk bots
- About advanced bots
- About Zendesk Advanced AI
- Zendesk bots resources
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