Forward Deployed Engineer

Zendesk launches directory for verified AI support endpoints. Wed, 14th Oct 2026 (Today) Zendesk has launched the Open Service Directory, a public directory of verified customer support endpoints for AI assistants and personal agents. The directory is intended to help assistants find official support channels endorsed by brands. The move addresses a growing problem as consumers increasingly use AI assistants to make appointments, request replacements and follow up on service issues. While assistants can often find websites or help articles, they have lacked a trusted way to confirm they are dealing with a company's authorised support operation. Zendesk said the Open Service Directory, or OSD, extends the Agentic Resource Discovery specification, allowing assistants to discover and verify customer support agents approved by businesses. The aim is to give AI systems a verified starting point instead of leaving them to rely on unconfirmed contact details. Several companies are joining the effort, including Betterment, ElevenLabs, Flex, TeamSystem, TBAuctions, Telekom Payment and Wireless Logic. Any brand using Zendesk software or another service platform can be listed in the directory if it opts in and approves a support listing through its provider. How it works According to Zendesk, the system works in three stages. First, participating brands approve a support listing through their service provider. Entries are checked against the company's domain and screened for impersonation. An AI assistant then searches participating registries, verifies the match and uses the approved support destination. It then connects directly to the verified support experience run by the brand. The directory itself does not access private customer data or perform support actions. Once an assistant connects, any interaction is governed by the brand's own authentication, authorisation and service policies, including rules on what information can be accessed, what actions are allowed and when a human agent needs to intervene. Zendesk is also developing controls to help brands identify both the assistant and the customer it represents, apply customer-specific permissions and determine which providers are allowed to connect. The goal is to give brands visibility into who acted, with what permission and what happened. Broader ecosystem The directory is designed to work across a broader range of AI and customer service technologies rather than within a single vendor's tools. Zendesk said OSD complements communication protocols including UCP, PACT and PAP, and plans to adopt those protocols as part of the wider framework around verified support. The directory is also compatible with OpenAI's Dots and ChatGPT, Claude, Muse, Instinct, Grok Bot and Gemini. That suggests Zendesk is trying to position the service as shared infrastructure for customer support interactions handled by AI assistants. In one example outlined by Zendesk, a customer asks a personal assistant to move an air conditioner repair appointment. The assistant could use the directory to locate the company's official support, connect to the brand's own AI agent with the customer's permission and complete the request within the company's policies. If human review is needed, the case could then be handed to a support team with the conversation history and previous actions preserved. The launch comes as technology companies and service providers seek standards for how autonomous or semi-autonomous assistants interact with businesses on behalf of users. A central issue is trust: brands need confidence that an assistant is authorised to act for a customer, while users need confidence that the assistant is reaching the right support destination. Zendesk said the Open Service Directory is meant to provide a shared foundation for that process across brands and service platforms. "The problem is that today those assistants lack a shared, trusted way to verify that they're reaching the brand's official support," the company said.

Wirbiski, ex-Google, is at Zendesk. Executive will take over the company's GTM for its HR product. October 13, 2026 - 05:57 Font size: -A+A Alberto Wirbiski. Alberto Wirbiski, former key account manager at Google, has just taken on the role of Employee Service GTM LATAM at Zendesk. As sometimes happens on LinkedIn, you have to translate what the role means: Wirbiski will be tasked with leading the expansion of technology sales for employee experience in Latin America. The so-called GTMs are the professionals responsible for a product's "go to market" strategy, getting involved in activities in sales, marketing, product, and operations. The role, which has become fashionable recently, involves defining how the solution will be sold, identifying the ideal customer profile, training sales teams, and aligning pricing and campaigns to accelerate adoption of that specific product. In Zendesk's case, the specific product is Zendesk's solutions aimed at employee service and customers' internal HR areas. Wirbiski spent the last four years at Google, but before that he worked at ServiceNow, which does a lot with internal workflows. He also worked at other large technology companies such as VMware and IBM, always in sales areas. Zendesk is known for the use of its software for customer service (CX, as the acronym in English goes), but from the beginning some customers also used the product for HR. As of 2019, the company identified the opportunity and began structuring the vertical aimed at employees (EX, or employer experience, to stick with the acronyms with X), creating dedicated packages and native integrations with HR platforms. The solution was consolidated between 2022 and 2023 under the name Zendesk for Employee Service, offering omnichannel service focused on corporate tools such as Slack and Teams. Editor at Baguete Diário

Zendesk CEO Tom Eggemeier says Meta's Muse saved him $3,105 in five days. Zendesk's chief executive says Meta's Muse cut his family's bills by $3,105. On the TNW Podcast, he explains why Zendesk is moving to pricing by resolution, not seat. October 8, 2026 - 8:32 am Zendesk will end the year with about $400m of AI revenue, up from about zero two years ago, chief executive Tom Eggemeier told TNW. Most of it comes from AI agents that customers pay for only when they resolve a case. Eggemeier has run Zendesk since late 2022. Before that, he was a partner at the private equity firm Permira, where he led its Menlo Park office. He spent more than a decade at the contact centre software company Genesys, rising to president. He studied history at the University of Dayton and holds a law degree from the University of Chicago. He spoke to Cristian Dina at HumanX in Amsterdam on 23 September. It is the third episode of the new TNW Podcast, after Yahoo's Jim Lanzone and Zoom's XD Huang. The full conversation is in the video below. "I saved over the last five days $3,105," Eggemeier said of Meta's Muse. $3,105 with Muse. The day before, Meta had challenged users to save up to $1,000 with Muse. Eggemeier said Muse cut about $2,000 a year from his family's internet and TV package. It cut about $1,000 a year from its mobile plan. It did about 95% of the work. He made one phone call himself. He is not yet in the early test in which Muse makes calls. He said Europeans may not save as much, because internet and mobile prices are much higher in the US. He has also been trying Muse and Instinct, another personal assistant, in recent weeks. He uses ChatGPT for hours a day, for research, customer work and speeches. With help from his team, he wrote code in Claude Code that is now in production at Zendesk. The team checked it three times first. He also built a basketball app with his son. Paying for outcomes. Zendesk began charging for automated resolutions in August 2024. It has since tested a model with about 100 customers that drops seats. It charges for every resolution, by a human or an AI agent. It will roll that out shortly to customers who want it, he said. He made the case against seats on stage at HumanX the same day. AI now solves or assists more than 50% of Zendesk tickets, Eggemeier said. That count includes self-service, AI agents and copilots. AI agents alone handle less than that. His best customers reach automation rates of 80% to 90%, with higher satisfaction than with people. A utility company in Brazil used Zendesk's collections agent to bring in about $5m of new revenue in a few months, he said. More than 80,000 companies use Zendesk. He estimates that one to two billion people deal with it each year without knowing it. A human on call. Eggemeier expects personal AI agents talking to company agents to make up more than half of interactions within two years. He called it a little scary, and said people should always be able to reach a human. Zendesk tells customers to offer that option, he said. Asked about companies replacing staff with AI, he said companies and governments should train people to use it. He called himself an optimist, and pointed to the jobs that changed after the industrial revolution and since the 1980s. "I can't see beyond five or 10 years. There's going to be absolutely a need for humans," he said. His advice to young people, including his two children at university, is to build communication, analytical and relationship skills, and to learn AI.