Zendesk Advanced AI vs Generative AI: What’s the difference?

Zendesk have started dipping their toes into the AI world. But at the moment, they’re doing it with three different things. Generative AI, AI Agents, and Advanced AI. This gets confusing, real quick.

So we’re going to clear things up. Below, we’ll break down the difference is between Generative AI (also referred to as just Zendesk AI) and Advanced AI, and chat you through which one you get with each Zendesk plan. We’ll also give you a quick pros and cons list for each AI option.

What AI is available with Zendesk?

Zendesk offers Generative AI and Advanced AI. Each one upgrades the way their automated bots reply and process customer enquiries. They also assist human agents with their support tasks, like creating help center documentation, suggesting macros, and more.

Differences between Zendesk’s Generative and Advanced AI at a glance

In a nutshell, Generative AI features are limited and only scratch the surface of what AI is capable of providing for a business. Advanced AI provides premium features that have a greater impact on support agents’ tasks rather than just customer inquiries.

Key Differences

1. Advanced AI focuses on operational improvements and analytics, while Generative AI emphasizes natural language interactions.
2. Advanced AI is ideal for streamlining backend processes and providing insights, while Generative AI excels in direct customer communication and query resolution.
3. Advanced AI is an add-on that requires users to be paying for a higher tier plan and increases in price as you increase your agents.
4. Advanced AI integrates more deeply with Zendesk’s existing analytics and operational tools, while Generative AI mainly just offers flexibility in crafting responses.

At the end of the day, each AI improves your agents’ efficiency and reduces the resolution time while improving your customer satisfaction scores – as long as you’re able to optimize your usage.

Zendesk AI (Generative AI) features

1. Natural Language Processing: Understands and generates human-like text responses.
2. Multi-lingual Support: Likely capable of understanding and responding in multiple languages. (Although there have been some reported issues with this feature.)
3. Context-Aware Responses: Generates relevant replies based on conversation history.
4. Dynamic Knowledge Base Integration: Can pull information from existing help center documentation to formulate responses.
5. Personas: Bot tone and emojis to match brand voice.

Zendesk Advanced AI’s features

1. Intent Recognition: Accurately identifies customer intents from their queries.
2. Automated Ticket Routing: Directs tickets to the most appropriate agent or department.
3. Smart Ticket Categorization: Automatically tags and categorizes incoming tickets.
4. Sentiment Analysis: Detects customer sentiment to prioritize urgent or sensitive issues.
5. Predictive Analytics: Forecasts trends and potential issues before they escalate.

Pricing

Zendesk has graciously included Generative AI into their existing plans, which is a great way to start testing AI and exploring how it impacts the experience of your customers.

However, there are limitations on the number of automatic resolutions that come with your plan. Starting at 5 and increasing to 15/agent/month with the highest tier plan. After which, each automatic resolution costs between $1-2 per resolution.

Advanced AI is an add-on for Professional Plans and higher, and costs $50/agent/month. This add-on does not increase the free monthly automatic resolutions.

You can find a detailed description of the AI pricing here.

Generative or Advanced AI: Quick or complex

Both solutions aim to enhance customer service, but Generative AI lacks the depth and analysis that Advanced AI offers. Advanced AI optimizes operations and provides insights, while Generative AI focuses on improving direct customer interactions. The choice between them (or using both in tandem) would depend on specific business needs and customer service strategies.

Making users choose between depth and cost-effectiveness is a choice that has convinced many Zendesk users to consider alternative apps instead. These apps can provide the complex features and level of analysis that Advanced AI offers, alongside improving the customer interactions that Generative AI assists with. Apps like eesel AI offer more customization, more integrations, and more flexibility, at a fraction of the cost.