Using generative search to provide AI-powered answers to search queries

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Important: The GA rollout of generative search begins April 1st, 2025 and will be on by default in Knowledge settings. Generative search won't be visible to end users until the feature is generally available on May 5th. Beginning April 1st, if you want to opt out of this feature, you can deactivate generative search results by turning off the Quick Answers search setting in every help center in which you want to remove the feature.

Generative search provides AI-generated answers to users' search queries in your help center based on your content. When generative search is activated, users can view generated answers without clicking through search results or scanning related articles. However, users can still easily click into the articles for more information, because the generated answer is derived from the primary search results.

Generative search is available with all Zendesk Suite and Guide plans. All Zendesk Suite and Guide plans include up to 100,000 eligible searches per month that produce generative search results. This includes search queries of two words or more for supported languages that display generated answers on the search results page. If you exceed 100,000 searches per month, you can buy the Generative Search Extender add-on to perform additional searches. To do so, contact Zendesk Sales.

Note: Generative search is available by default in standard themes and themes that were customized after March 26, 2025. If your help center was created before March 26, 2025 and uses a customized theme, you must update your custom theme to add generative search. Generative search is available for all templating API versions. See Help center templating cookbook.

This article includes the following sections:

• About generative search for help center
• Updating your help center theme
• Using generative search for help center

Related articles:

• About generative AI features in Zendesk

About generative search for help center

Generative search works by evaluating the question that a user enters in the help center search. The top matching articles and posts are evaluated by generative AI, which then generates an answer. On Enterprise plans with federated search configured, the generative AI also evaluates external content and can be included in the answer. The generated answer is posted by default at the top of the search results.

Generative search is activated by default in your help center. To deactivate this feature, see Viewing and managing your search settings.

The quality of a generated answer depends on the following:

• Quality of your knowledge base: Because generative answers are based on your help center and your external content, the quality of the answer depends on the quality of your knowledge base.
• Search input: Depending on the format and structure of the search query, you may not see a generated answer for every search. For the best results, avoid one- or two-word search queries, and instead, structure your search query as a phrase, sentence, or question. Additionally, if there are no articles, posts, or external content that match the search, an answer can't be generated.

Updating your help center theme

To use generative search, your theme must include the {{generative_answers}} helper. Newer accounts already include this helper, but accounts with themes that were customized prior to March 25, 2025 must add it.

To update your custom theme

1. In Knowledge admin, click Customize design () in the sidebar.

   The Themes page opens.

2. Click Customize on the theme you want to edit.
3. Click Edit code.

   

4. Under Templates, click search_results.hbs.
5. Add the {{generative_answers}} helper code to the theme's search_results.hbs template where you want the generative answers to appear.

   

6. Click Save.
7. After activating, if you find that the Quick answer box UI doesn't match the fonts and colors of your custom theme, this could be due to one of the following:
   • You have the required settings in the theme settings interface. However, the settings values are not set to match your theme, because your theme's look and feel is hardcoded in your CSS file. To update the color and font settings, see Branding your help center.
   • You do not have some or all of the settings in the theme settings interface. If this is the case, you'll need to add the settings and set their values to match the rest of your theme. To do this, you can update your manifest.json file with the following identifiers from Github, replacing the value of each identifier with the font or color code that matches your theme:
     • Color settings identifiers:
       • text_color
       • link_color
       • hover_link_color
       • visited_link_color
     • Fonts settings identifiers
       • heading_font
       • text_font

Using generative search for help center

When generative search is activated, users can enter questions or phrases in the help center search field and receive AI-generated answers to their question. Derived from the top search results for their query, answers show users the information they're looking for in the search results, without requiring them to open each link and scan through the articles for an answer.

Generated search answers are posted in a box above the search results, alongside buttons that let users provide feedback about how helpful the answer is. Providing feedback helps train the AI to produce better answers in the future. You can also improve the quality of your answers by enhancing the content in your knowledge base. Generative search uses the content in your help center to produce answers, so as a result, the answer is only as good as your content.

To use generative search for help center

1. Enter a question or phrase in the help center search field and press Enter.

   The search page opens, displaying the search results and, if available, an AI-generated answer.

   

   If there is not enough information for AI to generate an answer, you'll receive instructions to rephrase your search to sound more like a question or phrase. For example, the search query "What documents do we need to provide to create a joint account?" is more likely to generate an answer than the search terms "joint account."

   

2. (Optional) Submit your feedback about the quick answer.

   Feedback is retained for up to 90 days and is used to assess and improve the quality of answers produced by generated search.

   • Click the thumbs-up icon to indicate the answer was helpful.
   • Click the thumbs-down icon to indicate the answer was not helpful. Select the reason that best matches the reason for your rating. Type any additional feedback you may have, then click Submit feedback.