My AskAI vs Zendesk AI agent: Features, Pricing, and Results (2026)

I know why you're here…

You're here because of one of 3 reasons:

1. Your Zendesk rep reached out and asked if you wanted to try the Zendesk Advanced AI agent, told you what it would cost, and your jaw hit the floor… OR
2. You tried to set up your Zendesk Advanced AI agent and lost interest somewhere around building your 9th flow…OR
3. You did your Zendesk Advanced AI agent trial and, well, let's just say it didn't really make the impact you were hoping for…

You know you need to (and should) be using an AI agent in Zendesk, and so you want to know: will the My AskAI AI agent in Zendesk be the solution you were looking for?

I’m going to break down and compare the two as simply (and honestly) as possible so you can make the right decision for your AI customer service needs.

Let’s begin.

p.s. I have done my best to research the features and pricing of Zendesk’s AI solutions but they don’t make it particularly easy to find out about… IYKYK, so if any details are incorrect or omitted, it is more likely because I couldn’t figure out their docs than an intentional error!

My AskAI vs Zendesk AI at a glance

What AI can I use to reply in Zendesk?

Zendesk has had what it refers to as ‘AI’ in Zendesk for a while with its Answer Bot and other previous similar tools and features.

But what’s different now is the use of ‘Generative AI’.

This is AI that doesn’t need you to tell it what to write, but that can create its own content and formulate answers through looking at what you provide to it, and reasoning.

Zendesk has a few different ways it has introduced this into its helpdesk:

• AI Agents Essentials
• Advanced AI Agents

Both of which I will be explaining and comparing in this post.

But, what you may not have realised is that if you wanted to use AI to reply in Zendesk and replicate a lot of Zendesk AI’s features (and more), there are other, 3rd party options that integrate directly into your Zendesk channels, one of which is My AskAI.

In fact, here are 10 top Zendesk AI alternatives if you want to learn more.

How does an AI customer service agent work in Zendesk?

Pretty much all AI customer service apps or integrations for Zendesk work in a similar way, whether they are Zendesk AI or 3rd party:

1. Train the AI agent with your company or product knowledge.
2. Turn it on - replying to customers (generally as a ‘tier 1’ agent).
3. If the AI can’t answer, or if the customer wants to speak to a person, it will hand over the conversation (or ticket) to a human agent to respond so the customer can get the support they need.

That is the 10,000ft explanation.

There are, however, many variations on how all of that is done.

So let’s get into the comparison:

What are the different ways I can use my AI agent in Zendesk?

Direct replies

The main way people use AI agents (both Zendesk AI and My AskAI) is to directly reply to customers within messaging or to the ticket itself.

However, this isn’t the only way AI customer service can be used or tested.

Copilot replies

Both Zendesk and My AskAI have ‘Copilot’ options for their AI agents.

These Copilots mean you can use your AI agent to reply behind-the-scenes.

The Zendesk AI copilot is embedded into the Zendesk helpdesk, whereas My AskAI’s is injected into the Zendesk helpdesk via a Chrome Extension.

In both cases, as a message or ticket comes in, you can just click a button to generate a response.

In addition to generating draft replies to questions, Zendesk’s AI copilot can also: summarize incoming tickets, enhance the writing of the agent, and categorize and tag tickets using Intelligent triage (similar to My AskAI’s Tagging, more on this later).

Internal note replies

Exclusive to My AskAI (with no Zendesk AI equivalent), this allows you to run the My AskAI AI agent as if it were responding to all the messages in the ticket BUT only via internal notes, so only the human agent can see them.

Note, this will only work for tickets, not for the Messaging widget.

This is a great way to see how the AI agent will behave in a real conversation before putting it live.

A lot of our users start with this (plus the Copilot replies) so they can get a feel for things and check they are ready to go-live.

What are the different Zendesk AI agent plans? I’m confused…

You and me both!

But I’ve been clicking around their site for the last few hours and think I have it down (for now… they seem to change things up quite a lot), so let me see if I can demystify it for you too:

Zendesk AI Agents (Essentials)

This is Zendesk’s entry-level AI agent capability, and it comes with every Suite and Support plan.

I say “included”, I am not sure you get anything included for free as you have to pay per Automated Resolution (more on that when we talk pricing later).

Here’s what an Essentials Zendesk AI Agent can do:

“On messaging channels, when an AI agent identifies a relevant help center article, it sends the customer a single conversational message with a link to the source article. These replies are always followed by a request for end-user feedback (“Was this helpful? Yes/No”).”

So, in short, not an awful lot. There are a couple more useful features I will explain later on.

But it may deflect some very basic Tier 1 requests.

Zendesk Advanced AI Agents

This is Zendesk’s ‘real’ AI agent capability.

The Advanced AI agent came about as the result of Zendesk’s purchase of Ultimate in early 2024, a leading AI CX tool at the time.

It has taken them a little while to combine the two platforms (and you may still see Ultimate branding in some Zendesk help center screenshots), but it is now available to pretty much all on Suite Team plans and above as an ‘Advanced AI agents’ add-on.

Since mid 2026, though, Zendesk has retired the standalone AI agents Advanced add-on and folded its features into the Suite and Support plans, so there is no separate per-seat fee to buy any more. You now pay per Automated Resolution instead, at $1.50 each if you commit to volume up front and $2.00 if you do not. The old figure of roughly $50/agent/mo only still applies on legacy contracts.

Zendesk’s Advanced AI agents do sound like the real deal though, with features including an agent builder, connections to internal APIs, advanced reporting and more.

Zendesk Copilot Add-on

If you want the internal Copilot tool for your agents, that is a separate add-on, listed at $50/agent/mo on Professional plans and above.

Hopefully, that has made things a little clearer now for our comparison.

I’ll be comparing the My AskAI Zendesk integration to Zendesk’s Advanced AI agents for the remainder of this article (otherwise it wouldn’t be a particularly fair fight…).

Which is easier to setup: Zendesk AI or My AskAI?

As Zendesk AI is Zendesk’s own AI agent, you would think set-up would be a breeze.

And it is, for the AI Agents (Essentials) feature, as you just go to your admin dashboard, click AI Agents, add, then name it and choose a tone of voice.

But the Essentials agent is pretty limited, so you’ll likely want the Advanced AI agent.

Those Advanced features now come with every Suite and Support plan, so there's nothing extra to buy before you start.

After you have had it enabled on your account, it’s a case of adding any knowledge (website, help center) you want to use to train it initially and writing any instructions for the AI agent to follow.

There is still a concept of rules and flows in Zendesk AI as part of their dialogue builder, which can mean you can have robust and rigid controls to how the AI agent operates, but does also mean it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to set up.

This is something we have often heard on calls with prospective users who have tried it, saying it required “an engineering qualification” to set up correctly.

As one Zendesk user on Reddit put it:

“We recently acquired Ultimate.ai (now part of Zendesk AI) to automate our customer support, but to be honest, we are feeling a bit overwhelmed.”
(@get_ost)

While another Zendesk user said:

“We've been struggling through the Ultimate.ai (Zendesk AI) implementation with a CSM and dedicated consultant. The bare bones project was supposed to take a month and we are on month four.”
(@CoasterRider_)

My AskAI, while a 3rd party app, is actually a lot simpler to get going, as all you need to do is:

• Sign up for a My AskAI account.
• Connect your Zendesk Help Center and/or website.
• Install the My AskAI Zendesk AI agent app.

All of this can be done without having any specialized technical knowledge.

Play video

My AskAI has no flow or dialogue builders, it will just use Generative AI to answer questions and reason through problems.

If you do need slightly more control over responses you can use the Guidance feature.

How do Zendesk AI and My AskAI differ in what they can be trained on?

When you start to use an AI customer service agent the first thing you need to do is train it - ensuring it has the information and content so it can answer questions.

Zendesk’s AI agent and My AskAI can both be trained on a variety of different sources - here’s how they compare:

‘Static’ content

It’s pretty clear from this that if you have help and business knowledge in a variety of sources, My AskAI has the edge, with Zendesk’s AI Agent limited to a handful of help centers and a web crawl (notably not integrating with Intercom’s help center).

If you want to train your AI agent on anything from internal sources (Notion, Google Drive etc), then you are going to hit a roadblock with Zendesk.

In My AskAI, all “internal” sources. e.g. Google Drive, Notion et al, can be set to only be used in its Copilot mode, so you get the best of both worlds.

In addition, My AskAI has a concept of “Custom Answers”, where you can add knowledge snippets directly into your AI agent to train it, without having to publish them anywhere.

These can be useful if you want to just add a temporary piece of knowledge or if it doesn’t warrant its own article.

‘Dynamic’ content

One of the most impressive features Zendesk have managed to bring over from Ultimate into their AI agent is the “Integrations Builder”.

The Integrations Builder lets anyone connect their AI agent to any API or data source, without code, allowing the Zendesk AI agent to do things like: access customer information from back office systems, retrieve data from other external data sources, or interact with third-party applications, all without requiring a single line of code.

While not set up with the latest MCP architecture used by other AI customer service agent tools, it is definitely an impressive capability that allows for a whole host of different actions from the AI agent.

While My AskAI does not have as rich and flexible an integration building experience, it does have custom Actions/Tools (also not via MCPs) that allow for largely the same capabilities (with more advanced features coming soon).

Either way, if you are going beyond the ‘out of the box’ Stripe and Shopify actions or tools, while you don’t technically need a developer on your team involved, it definitely would help (or you’ll need to spend a hefty amount of time with ChatGPT…).

Which has better answer quality, Zendesk’s AI agents or My AskAI?

This is where things get tricky, as there isn’t really any simple, real-world test that can show this.

So, we will compare based on real-world data that is out there and let you be the judge.

As of the time of writing, Zendesk don’t publicly show their AI resolution rate across all customers (booo!).

But they do quote (in a number of places) that AI resolutions are “up to 80%” (a number Ultimate consistently quoted prior to their acquisition), along with some case studies where they quote rates between 39% and 66%.

They also talk about the “road to automation” (AI resolution) as being:

• The first 30% from generative AI knowledge-based answers
• Up to 40% when adding conversation flows
• Up to 50% when adding back end customer data
• Up to 60% when doing regular QA in addition
• And finally reaching 80% through responding to new use cases, in new languages

Looking online, I did however read less-than-impressive verdicts on answer quality from current users, including this support manager on Reddit:

“Zendesk ai takes a light load and that’s it”
(@karnesus)

And this customer service rep:

“Sometimes it looks like the customer found what they needed, sometimes they bail midway through, but sometimes (and this is what concerns us) we see high value customers getting iffy or bad answers and then abandoning the chat.”
@baby_fish_m0uth

And one more from this support manager:

”Currently, I’m using the Zendesk Essentials AI plan, which—honestly—doesn’t feel like AI at all. Pretty disappointed with it so far.”
@Meemster_Me

My AskAI, on the other hand, has resolved over 1,000,000 tickets, with a resolution rate of 72%+ on a rolling 30-day basis.

So, pretty hard to judge using the public data.

However, we can give a recent, real-world example from a customer who had tried both:

Alan Pugh, Head of Customer Service at Traveljoy came to us saying that he had trialled Zendesk’s AI agent and was only able to achieve 24% AI resolution.

He then signed up for My AskAI, trained his AI agent on the same help center information (nothing more), put the agent live in Zendesk and instantly saw 76% AI resolution “instantly elevating the level of our service”.

You can read more about TravelJoy’s experience with My AskAI here.

At the end of the day though, the only way you can really get a feel for answer quality is by testing out for yourself and seeing which you prefer; sometimes it just comes down to preference!

Which AI agent is easier to improve over time, Zendesk AI or My AskAI?

Once you’ve trained your AI customer service agent and set it live, the big, next step is to figure out how to make it better.

To improve your AI resolution (deflection) rate (aside from overall model improvements by Zendesk and My AskAI), you need to monitor how your agent is responding, identify areas it can’t answer and update your knowledge base to address these gaps.

Both Zendesk’s AI agent and My AskAI have features that help with this, but they approach the problem in very different ways.

Here’s an overview:

Zendesk’s Advanced AI agent focuses on highly quantitative charts and statistics showing resolution rates by channel, language or by AI agent, along with overall trends across many, many charts.

This means you will have excellent reporting data to share internally, however, what it lacks is the actionable “how do I fix this?” part of the process.

You will be able to see exactly where performance is lacking, but won’t necessarily know “why”, and so it is left to you to figure out what can be done.

From Zendesk’s documentation, it is not clear whether you can even dig in to review and understand which conversations or tickets resulted in a human handover.

As one Zendesk developer put it:

“The main challenge isn't really the AI itself, it's the configuration and training side - getting intents right, maintaining the responses, keeping it aligned with your actual workflows. That's where the ongoing effort is.”
@Alternative_Fill_522

On the other hand, My AskAI will show you which conversations and tickets are resulting in human handovers, and will help you identify where you have missing knowledge in your help center.

It will also let you generate a new knowledge snippet or custom answer from your human agents’ previous responses in Zendesk.

You can do this via a linked note in Zendesk, generated on human handover, that will take you to your My AskAI Dashboard.

My AskAI also lets you set up tests based on historic tickets in Zendesk to see how your AI agent is performing at any time too, so you can review the impact your new knowledge or guidance has had on responses.

Probably Zendesk AI’s most powerful feature for improving responses is the ability to run your own A/B tests on responses and see which results in better performance, this is a feature unique to Zendesk.

This would however only be useful if you were already using their dialogue flows (reminiscent of the chatbots of old).

However, from our experience, the biggest improvement you will see when starting out using an AI customer service agent will come from simple knowledge gap identification, inspecting and testing.

Which has more features, Zendesk AI or My AskAI?

Both AI agents have a significant number of features, however they differ considerably in what they target.

Zendesk’s AI agent features are narrower but probably consider more edge cases and some very large Enterprise requirements (think granular access rights/user roles, customizations and dialogue (flow) builders).

Whereas My AskAI’s feature set is more focused on improving your AI agent responses as simply as possible, features like: knowledge gap identification, more knowledge source integrations and more actionable and transparent insights.

Here’s a quick summary of their current features at the time of writing:

As you can see, both AI customer service agents are initially matched in terms of some core features.

One of My AskAI’s more powerful features is called “Tasks”, a feature that allows the completion of complex, multi-step processes.

Think things like: transaction disputes, account updates and refunds, where you need a combination of decisions, data collection, lookups and actions.

Tasks allow you to wrap multiple API (or tool) calls in one task so your agent can autonomously complete actions for you.

So you could, for example, create a refund task where the user’s details are looked up, along with their orders, before the order for refund is confirmed, checked against policy, then finally refunded via Stripe.

My AskAI also has integrations with tools that Zendesk AI does not have, including native Microsoft Teams and Zapier integrations.

Ultimately, it will come down to your specific use case:

If it’s important to continue building (and managing) deterministic, rigid flows and having detailed control and customizability over your AI agent, Zendesk may be a good option, feature-wise.

If you want an easier-to-use AI that is more focused on helping you improve its responses over time, My AskAI is likely the way to go.

What about channels - does either do voice?

Most of this comparison is about replies in chat and tickets, but it's worth being clear on channel coverage, because it's the one place Zendesk's own AI reaches further than ours.

Both My AskAI and Zendesk's AI agent reply across email and live chat inside Zendesk. Where Zendesk pulls ahead is voice: their AI agent can take phone calls, where My AskAI today focuses on the text channels (email, chat, social and messaging) inside your helpdesk.

So if a big slice of your support comes in over the phone and you want the AI to handle that directly, Zendesk's voice coverage is a real advantage and worth weighing. If your support is mostly chat, email, and messaging tickets (as it is for most of the teams we work with), you won't feel the gap - and you get everything else in this comparison at a fraction of the cost.

Which is easier to customize, Zendesk AI or My AskAI?

Both Zendesk AI and My AskAI have extensive customization options.

Zendesk Advanced AI definitely has more in-product customization - while it has fewer features, they can be more deeply adjusted building on the core Zendesk helpdesk product.

However, almost every Zendesk AI feature can also be replicated by My AskAI.

You can trigger My AskAI for certain users, or on certain conversations.

If you have a custom setup that you are trying to replicate with My AskAI, get in touch because there is a good chance we have either seen it before or can come up with something to fit.

Where My AskAI stands out from Zendesk Advanced AI (and Zendesk), is our ability to fit the product around your use case.

We can work with you to get set up and even develop custom features that may not be available in Zendesk AI.

This is something you will struggle to get Zendesk to do, unless you have a very large number of tickets and a big budget.

What about vendor lock-in?

Being asked (or told) to move to a new helpdesk is probably up there with one of the biggest anxiety-inducing things you will be asked to do.

It’s rarely something a company takes lightly and is only usually done if it’s the last resort.

So knowing whether you are going to have to move is often an important consideration.

One of the big advantages of My AskAI over Zendesk’s Advanced AI is the interoperability with other helpdesks and tools.

My AskAI can easily be used on platforms apart from Zendesk and can be as simple as just installing a new app.

With Zendesk’s Advanced AI however, you are locked to Zendesk for the foreseeable future.

My AskAI has multiple approved, native marketplace apps, meaning you can use the AI agent without having to spend any money on expensive developers or agencies.

Not every integration, however, will be native, and so this is when the API integrations can be useful, however, this can be complex, time-consuming and expensive to set-up, so be warned.

Here’s a full list of vendors compatible (where you can use their AI agents) with Zendesk AI and My AskAI:

So if you think there is any chance you might be switching to another helpdesk in the future, choosing My AskAI as your AI agent will, without question, make your life easier on migration.

How do I actually switch from Zendesk's AI to My AskAI?

If you've read this far you might be wondering how much of a project switching actually is. The good news: you're not moving off Zendesk, you're swapping the AI inside it, so there's no helpdesk migration to dread.

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Here's the path most teams take:

1. Install the My AskAI Zendesk app and connect the same help centre (and any extra sources like Notion or Google Drive) you'd been using.
2. Run it in internal-notes mode first, so the AI drafts a reply on every ticket as a private note. Your customers see nothing, and you can grade it side-by-side against Zendesk's AI on real tickets.
3. Flip it to direct replies once you're happy with the quality.

Because you're training on the same help-centre content, you can do a like-for-like comparison rather than guessing. That's exactly how Traveljoy ran it, going from 24% resolution on Zendesk's AI to 76% on My AskAI off the same knowledge. The whole swap is usually a day's work, not a quarter's.

Does either AI agent have any other AI features?

It isn’t all about AI replies though, and both AI agents have an AI tagging feature to remove the monotony of agents having to classify and triage tickets manually.

Zendesk’s AI tagging feature is part of their Copilot add-on (termed “Intelligent Triage”), and My AskAI’s is a per-ticket add-on fee of $0.05/ticket/tag.

My AskAI’s tagging feature works by using the category name and short description, the AI will then automatically tag conversations and tickets as they are raised.

This not only removes the manual reporting burden from people, but also can be used as a way to triage tickets or route to certain workflows more intelligently.

The Zendesk AI agent tagging works slightly differently: instead of using your existing categories, you will use a pre-built list of intent categories and sentiments that are relevant to your industry.

You’ll get a similar outcome, just slightly less control/customizability.

Another AI feature, this time unique to Zendesk AI, is their AI help center quick answers.

When a user searches for anything in the help center, Zendesk AI generates an answer to their question so they don’t have to click into the search results.

Very neat little feature that I wish all help centers had!

What about security, is Zendesk AI more secure than My AskAI?

As one of the largest businesses in the space, worth over $10bn, that has been around for almost 18 years, unsurprisingly, Zendesk’s AI agent has a few more security certifications than My AskAI.

This doesn’t mean that My AskAI is not secure though, far from it, you can read more about our security practices here.

We do know that some businesses have certification requirements though, so here are the two AI agents compared for the most popular certifications:

If you want to use My AskAI but require one of the missing certifications, get in touch with us via our chat as we may already be starting work towards it!

Which costs more, Zendesk AI or My AskAI?

This is arguably where we see the biggest difference between the two AI agents: Price.

There are 2 big differences here:

The pricing model

Zendesk AI has a number of different aspects to its AI agent pricing, but the most impactful part of it is called ‘Automated Resolution’ pricing aka ‘outcome-based’ pricing.

This means that Zendesk gets to decide whether or not you should be charged for their service on each messaging thread or ticket.

This is where things get quite complicated, as there are a number of different ways Zendesk count Automated Resolutions, you can read more on them here.

I will try and “simplify” below:

On the Zendesk AI Agent (Essentials) plan an Automated Resolution is counted if:

After 72 hours of inactivity their own AI evaluation has confirmed that the AI agent’s response was relevant and the last interaction resulted in either: positive feedback, the user reached the final step in an answer flow, or the AI agent shared a help center article in relation to the user’s request (and the user didn’t hand over to a human agent).

On the Zendesk Advanced AI Agent plan an Automated Resolution is counted if: the conversation was not handed over to a human agent AND Zendesk’s AI evaluation determines that the user’s request was ‘satisfactorily resolved’.

But this also means if the user asks a question, gets a response that doesn’t answer their question (but Zendesk thinks it does), goes away frustrated or distracted, then you also get charged.

It also means that as the AI improves, both from Zendesk’s AI agent getting better but also from you doing the work to improve its knowledge, you will pay more, and that amount can vary considerably each month.

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The cost of an Automated Resolution with Zendesk’s AI agent? Well that isn’t super straightforward either, as it depends on whether you pay upfront (’Committed Usage’) or not (’Pay-as-you-go’):

• Committed Usage = $1.50 per Automated Resolution (purchased in $150 blocks of 100 resolutions).
• Pay-as-you-go = $2.00 per Automated Resolution.

  Not cheap! As one Zendesk user put it:

“£1.40 or so per resolve is ridiculous! and completely makes the tool not worth using”
@No_Ranger4956

You do, however, get a small number of Automated Resolutions included with your plan per agent (5/10/15 per agent, per month on the Team, Professional and Enterprise plan respectively).

We take a different approach: My AskAI charges for every ticket its AI agent is involved in, regardless of resolution, but at a much, much lower rate (see pricing plans).

Apart from the cost saving (more on that in a second), it also means:

• You can easily predict your costs as you know how many tickets you get
• As you improve the AI’s agent’s responses and as we improve our service, the cost per ticket overall decreases (as the AI resolves more tickets autonomously, without a person).

They are very different models of pricing: in theory, outcome-based pricing sounds fair, but the unpredictability and high per-ticket cost can quickly mean you are facing very large bills.

The overall cost

The other important consideration is the absolute cost of each AI agent.

Let’s do a quick comparison example (and we’ll be generous, assuming you are on the Zendesk Enterprise plan (so get 15 automated resolutions per agent per month included) and have pre-committed to your Automated Resolutions - i.e. this will be as cheap as it gets!):

In this scenario, My AskAI is over 6x cheaper than Zendesk’s AI Agent!

If we increase the resolution rate to 75%, Zendesk's bill rises to $11,800 a month. My AskAI stays at $1,299, which makes it about 9x cheaper.

You can see what this would look like for your business and calculate how much you could save here.

Conclusion - should I choose My AskAI or Zendesk AI?

Which product fits each Zendesk use case?

For most Zendesk teams, My AskAI is my pick. It wins 7 of the 11 categories below at a fraction of Zendesk AI's cost. Zendesk AI becomes the better choice when you need the AI to answer phone calls, or when procurement requires FedRAMP or ISO 27001.

Let’s start by summarizing our categories so far:

After all that, while Zendesk AI has the edge on security and additional AI features (with their AI help center quick answers), My AskAI has the edge almost everywhere else (and if you think I’m being unfairly biased, check out our Intercom Fin comparison!)

Zendesk have been slow to innovate and keep pace with the generative AI boom.

Even with their Ultimate acquisition, their AI agent misses out on a number of key features that should come as standard on a modern AI agent today (e.g. Improvements, Integrations).

Add to this that they are one of the most expensive options in the market right now for AI customer service, and it makes it very hard to make a good case for choosing them over My AskAI.

So, if you are trying to actually save money by using AI, AND want direct support from the founders of the business, choose My AskAI.

And if you are not yet using Zendesk and wondering if you should make the move from Intercom, see our Zendesk AI vs Intercom Fin comparison post.

FAQs