My bot is not recommending articles to users who are authenticated with JWT

Issue symptoms

I noticed that authenticated users are unable to see recommended articles in messaging. However, article recommendations are enabled in the bot.

Resolution steps

End users who are authenticated with JWT can only access articles when their user profile in Zendesk is created before their conversation starts with the bot.

For this to happen, ensure the end user exists in your Zendesk database before the user interacts with the Web Widget. This creates the external ID used to check the user profile and their access permissions. Users profiles without an external ID cannot see article recommendations, even if they are authenticated with JWT.

For more information, see this article: What are the different types of JWT proposed by Zendesk?

This article describes functionality available only to customers who had a drafted or published AI agent as of February 2, 2025. For information about equivalent functionality in the AI agents - Advanced add-on, see Building dialogues for AI agents - Advanced.