Announced on | New plan levels roll out on | Enhanced capabilities roll out on |
February 3, 2025 | February 3–7, 2025 |
For new* AI agent customers: February 3–7, 2025 For existing* AI agent customers: March 25, 2025 *See below for definition of new and existing AI agent customers. |
As part of our commitment to AI innovation, Zendesk is excited to introduce two new, flexible AI agent plans and enhanced capabilities for AI agents. Backed by cutting-edge generative AI technology, these plans are designed to guide every customer on their path to automation maturity.
Both new and existing AI agent customers will benefit from enhanced generative AI capabilities. Existing AI agent customers will notice a few adjustments in their AI agent experience, as outlined later in this announcement.
This announcement contains the following topics:
What’s changing?
We’re introducing the following changes:
- New plan levels for AI agents
- Enhanced capabilities for AI agents
- Features becoming legacy
- Features being removed
New plan levels for AI agents
AI agents now come in two flexible plans, Essential and Advanced, to meet your unique business requirements. Starting February 3, 2025, any customer that starts using AI agents will be automatically placed on AI agents - Essential, which is included in your Zendesk plan. Any customer can upgrade to AI Agents - Advanced, which requires additional costs.
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AI agents - Essential: Included in all Zendesk Suite and Support plans. Allows you to start automating in minutes with generative replies powered by the latest AI technology.
- You're automatically on this plan unless you had any drafted or published AI agents as of February 2, 2025, or unless you previously purchased a plan from Ultimate.
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AI agents - Advanced: Available as an add-on for any Suite and Support plans. Includes all features of the Essential level in addition to advanced functionality such as conversation flows, APIs, and advanced analytics. Encompasses the functionality previously available through Ultimate.
- You’re automatically on this plan if you previously purchased a plan from Ultimate.
These plan levels go into effect starting February 3, 2025. For more information about the levels, including the specific features included in each, see About AI agents.
Enhanced capabilities for AI agents
In addition to the new plan levels, Zendesk is enhancing our AI agent capabilities by replacing the underlying technology of generative replies with the latest generative AI technology from Ultimate, an AI company acquired by Zendesk in 2024. This change introduces:
- Revamped AI agent settings. A more intuitive interface for managing your AI agents. See Viewing and editing general AI agent settings.
- Enhanced generative replies. Improved response accuracy and automation through the upgraded generative AI technology, enabling more contextual conversations, the ability to handle small talk, and scan entire articles from your knowledge base for more precise responses.
- Upgraded AI agent personas. Enhanced settings allow your AI agents to deeply understand your business and deliver responses that drive a cohesive, on-brand customer experience. See Customizing an AI agent’s persona to add personality to AI-generated responses.
- Improved onboarding experience. A streamlined process for setting up your AI agents, reducing setup time and making them easier to deploy.
These changes are available to new AI agent customers starting on February 3, 2025 (with the rollout continuing through February 7, 2025), and will be available to existing AI agent customers on March 25, 2025. For details, see What do I need to do? below.
Features becoming legacy
The following features, which don’t support the new, more generative AI agent experience, are no longer available to new AI agent customers and are not included in the Essential plan:
Customers who had any drafted or published AI agents as of February 2, 2025 still retain access to these legacy features. These features will no longer receive functional improvements, but will be fully supported with important bug fixes and technical upgrades.
Additionally, the AI agents - Advanced plan includes similar functionality. For details, see Getting started with AI agents - Advanced.
Features being removed
The following features, which are no longer relevant due to enhanced AI agent capabilities, will be removed on March 25, 2025 for all customers:
- Disambiguation. Process by which an AI agent presents and prioritizes relevant intents when a question matches multiple intents. See If a question matches more than one intent.
- Clarification. Automatic response that can request more information from an end user when the AI agent does not understand the user's comment. See If the AI agent needs clarification.
- Generate variations. Ability to customize or create different versions of a greeting message based on an AI agent persona. See Setting the standard responses for an AI agent for messaging (Legacy).
Why is Zendesk making this change?
Zendesk is making these changes to:
- Streamline our AI agent offerings to provide a clear automation maturity path to empower our customers to reach 80%+ automation rates.
- Enhance AI agent performance with the latest generative AI technology recently integrated from Ultimate, leading to higher accuracy and automation rates.
- Provide a smoother conversational experience that is more contextual and capable of handling small talk, as well as the ability to scan entire articles in your knowledge base instead of just the first 75 words.
What do I need to do?
The impact to you and what you need to do depends on whether you’re a new AI agent customer or an existing AI agent customer. You’re considered a:
- New AI agent customers if you didn't have any drafted or published AI agents as of February 2, 2025 (regardless of when your Zendesk account was created).
- Existing AI agent customers if you had any drafted or published AI agents as of February 2, 2025.
For new AI agent customers
Starting on February 3, 2025 and rolling out through February 7, 2025, you’re automatically on the AI agents - Essential plan. To get started, you can:
- Create your first AI agent. See Getting started with AI agents - Essential.
- Explore upgrading to AI agents - Advanced. See About the AI agents - Advanced add-on.
For existing AI agent customers
On February 3, 2025, you continue to have the same access to AI agent features as you previously did. No action is required from you at this time.
However, on March 25, 2025, you will have access to the enhanced capabilities listed above. You can explore the resources linked in that section to be ready to fine-tune your AI agent experience and maximize your automation potential.
Additionally, on March 25, 2025, the features listed above will be removed. No action is required from you, as the enhanced generative capabilities replace the need for these features.
Feedback or questions?
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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