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Zendesk, Inc. has announced market-leading customer experience (CX) generative AI advancements that allow companies to realise immediate business value through improved customer satisfaction, reduced costs and increased customer loyalty.

• Zendesk AI. As part of the Zendesk AI solution, companies can now deploy generative AI-powered bots that quickly and seamlessly supply answers to customers. Additionally, agents, admins and managers now have more AI tools to customise and enhance their CX solutions.
• AI for Voice. As part of this next wave of Zendesk AI innovation, agents now have the option to receive AI-generated conversation summaries and transcripts that capture customer sentiment, which increases productivity and reduces costs.
• Advanced Data Privacy and Protection.Available today, businesses now have access to advanced safeguards and controls to manage customer data and ensure that generative AI is safely and securely deployed.

“Constant AI innovation is the new reality for CX leaders. While this promising technology unlocks incredible opportunities, it also adds pressure to deploy rapidly evolving capabilities in a timely manner and deliver meaningful business value,” said Tom Eggemeier, CEO at Zendesk.

“Zendesk is the best partner for businesses during this transformative time. We bring a powerful combination of deep CX and AI experience to provide capabilities that allow CX teams to be more efficient and empathetic. This improves customer and employee satisfaction and delivers cost efficiencies and revenue growth.”

New Generative AI Capabilities Create Authentic Conversations

According to the 2023 Zendesk CX Trends Report, nearly 70% of global consumers expect most companies will use generative AI to improve their experiences. In Asia Pacific (APAC), 68% of leaders noted that expanding the use of AI across the customer experience is a key priority in 2023.

The new Zendesk generative AI capabilities enable bots to summarise key information from multiple help center articles for more natural conversations with customers. With these Zendesk AI enhancements, agents can resolve requests faster and more consistently with contextually similar tickets. Additionally, admins can review AI-provided intent suggestions that address gaps in answers as well as adjust bot tone to be more casual or professional to stay consistent with brand persona.

“Our team is very focused on operational efficiency and with Zendesk AI, we implemented AI immediately—without any developer support—while maintaining high-quality, personalised service for our customer base of more than 1.2 million online shoppers,” said Aashley Malsbury, Sr. Operations Manager at Grove Collaborative. “As we implement Zendesk AI across our CX portfolio, there is massive potential to eliminate manual work for agents which allows them to focus on more important tasks that are key to maintaining our 95% CSAT score.”

As part of this release, Zendesk AI is expanding intent detection to additional industries and use cases including Insurance, Travel/Tourism and more. Companies in these industries can now take common intents and edit them for their specific needs such as detecting frequently asked questions by travelers, and escalating to agents who are specially equipped to handle these issues.

Additionally, Zendesk announced AI for Voice which further reduces manual work for agents working on the phone by summarising the conversation, providing a transcript and identifying customer sentiment. This saves time and allows agents to focus on customer resolutions.

Advanced Security and Privacy Safeguards Businesses

As the demand for AI-driven and personalised experiences grows, companies are finding it increasingly important to secure data across the customer journey. As part of Zendesk’s commitment to trust and security, the company provides auditability, encryption, and business resilience as well as a variety of certifications including FedRAMP and ISO certifications, and compliance controls to meet HIPAA and GDPR requirements.

To build on these offerings, Zendesk today launched an Advanced Data Privacy & Protection package. This provides companies with greater control and flexibility over customer data to:

• Safeguard their business with stronger and targeted encryption.
• Elevate privacy by specifying what data is shown and kept.
• Strengthen security and visibility by logging who accessed and searched for data.

These capabilities will help businesses manage rapidly evolving data requirements accelerated by advances in AI. As the industry continues to evolve, Zendesk is committed to guiding companies through changing regulations and ensuring control and flexibility over how customer data is managed.

“There is a lot of value and power that generative AI and LLMs promise for businesses. However, we must set an example on building CX responsibly and guide our customers to reduce risk,” said Cristina Fonseca, Head of AI at Zendesk. “In line with our security principles and privacy framework, we have built in safeguards and control for companies to set limits for bots. For example, when sensitive information (such as medical history) comes up, an agent must be brought into the customer conversation.”

With these enhancements, Zendesk continues to help businesses unlock the power of their customer interactions. Looking ahead, the company is committed to leading the CX industry and accelerating innovation, especially in AI. To hear more about the company’s vision for powerful AI and intelligent CX, visit the Zendesk Newsroom.

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