How to add an AI chatbot to Zendesk that answers tickets from your Help Center

You can put an AI agent on your Zendesk queue without switching helpdesks: connect Zendesk to ChatPal, give the assistant your Help Center and documents, and choose whether it answers customers itself or drafts replies for your agents. Tickets it can't handle go to the Zendesk group you choose, and your agents keep working in Zendesk as they do today.

Below: the setup, what to decide before it replies to a customer, what it doesn't do in Zendesk, and how its price compares with Zendesk's own AI. We make ChatPal, so read the price comparison with that in mind.

What you get in each mode

The integration has two modes. You pick one when you connect, and you can change it later.

Autopilot: the assistant answers tickets itself.

• New tickets reach ChatPal through a Zendesk webhook.
• It writes a reply from your knowledge base and posts it on the ticket as a public comment.
• When it can't help, for example on a complex issue, a sensitive topic or a question your knowledge doesn't cover, it escalates the ticket to your support group.
• It respects working hours you set: a ticket that arrives outside them goes to your team straight away.

Copilot: the assistant drafts, your agents decide.

• An agent opens a ticket and asks for a suggested reply with one click.
• The draft appears in a ChatPal panel in the ticket sidebar. The agent accepts it as it is, edits it or rejects it.
• ChatPal tracks which drafts were accepted, edited or rejected, and the Analytics page shows a chart of it over time. A draft that keeps getting rejected usually points to a gap in your knowledge.

In both modes:

• You can sync your Zendesk Help Center articles into the assistant's knowledge.
• Each conversation is kept in ChatPal for analytics and review.
• With lead capture turned on, ChatPal records leads from Zendesk conversations too.

As for which mode to start with: if your agents want to see what the AI would say before a customer does, start with Copilot and watch the acceptance chart. If most of your queue is routine (delivery times, return windows, how to reset a password) and your Help Center already answers it, Autopilot can answer those tickets itself.

Before you start

You need:

• a Zendesk account on a Support plan or above, and an admin who can create an API token;
• your Zendesk subdomain, the part before .zendesk.com in your Zendesk address;
• the email of a Zendesk agent account for ChatPal to use. Autopilot's replies are posted from this account, so customers see its name. Zendesk bills per agent, so check whether a dedicated account needs a seat on your plan;
• for Copilot mode, a Zendesk plan that lets you install private apps. Zendesk's developer documentation names Suite Growth or above, or Support Professional or above. If you are on a smaller plan, ask Zendesk before you pick Copilot;
• a ChatPal account with an assistant. Sign-up is free and needs no card.

Step 1: connect Zendesk

Create an API token in Zendesk. In Zendesk's Admin Center, open Apps and integrations, then APIs, then API tokens, and click Add API token. Give it a description such as "ChatPal", save it and copy the token. Zendesk shows the full token only once, so paste it somewhere safe before you close the window. Token access has to be turned on for your account.

Connect in ChatPal.

1. Click Integrations, then Zendesk, then Connect Zendesk.
2. Fill in the Zendesk Subdomain, the Zendesk API Token from the step above, and the Zendesk Authentication Email: the email of the agent account ChatPal uses.
3. Under Mode, choose Autopilot or Copilot.
4. For Autopilot, open Optional settings and enter the Operator Group ID: the ID of the Zendesk group that receives escalated tickets. Without a group, the assistant can't assign a ticket to your team when it escalates.
5. Click Save.

Let Zendesk send tickets to ChatPal. ChatPal creates a webhook address and secret for your integration, and Zendesk needs a webhook and a trigger that send ticket events to it. The quick way is Set up automatically on the Zendesk integration page. It asks for a Zendesk admin email, which it uses once and doesn't store, then creates (or repairs) the webhook and the trigger for you, puts the trigger in Zendesk's Notifications category, fires it when a comment the customer can see is added, and leaves out comments from the ChatPal agent account so the assistant doesn't trigger itself. If you also tick the option to create the ChatPal Status custom field and have set an operator group, it sets up the webhook and trigger that route escalated tickets to a person as well.

If you'd rather do it by hand, click Set up manually instead. The Setup Guide on the page shows your webhook URL and secret and walks you through it: in Zendesk, a webhook to that URL that sends the secret in an X-Webhook-Secret header, then a trigger that fires when a comment the customer can see is added, with your webhook as its action and this JSON body: { "ticket_id": "{{ticket.id}}" }. ChatPal reads the rest of the ticket from Zendesk itself.

For Copilot mode, install the sidebar app.

1. In ChatPal, open Integrations, then Zendesk, and click Download App under Install Copilot Sidebar App.
2. In Zendesk's Admin Center, go to Apps and integrations, then Apps, then Zendesk Support apps, and upload the ZIP file as a private app.
3. During installation Zendesk asks for three values. The API Base URL and Assistant ID are listed on your Zendesk integration page in ChatPal. The API Key you create in ChatPal under Settings, then API Keys; the full key is shown only once.

The ChatPal panel then appears in the ticket view for every agent.

Step 2: give it your knowledge and sync your Help Center

The assistant answers only from what you give it. That comes from two places, and most teams use both.

Your Zendesk Help Center. Open Integrations, then Zendesk, and click Update Zendesk Configuration. Under Optional settings, tick Enable Help Center sync, fill in the Help Center locale (the language of the articles to sync, such as en-us) and click Update. Then click Sync Now on the integration page to run the first sync. The articles are added to the assistant's knowledge. After you publish or change articles, run the sync again so the assistant has the new version.

Everything that isn't in the Help Center. Internal policies, price lists, warranty terms, the answers your agents keep in their heads: add them in your assistant's Configuration. On the Files tab, Upload files takes PDF, Word (.docx) and plain text files. On the Links tab, Add Link reads a web page: tick Single page only for that page alone, or leave it unticked to follow the site's links, up to your plan's limit. You can also write FAQ and Policies entries directly in the configuration.

A good test of coverage: take last month's twenty most common ticket topics and check that each one has a written answer somewhere in these sources. If the only place an answer exists is an agent's macro, write it down as an article or an FAQ entry; the assistant reads your knowledge, not your macros.

Step 3: decide what the AI answers and when it hands over

Before Autopilot replies to anyone, settle three things.

What it should and shouldn't answer. Write it in your assistant's Instructions in Configuration: the tone, the topics it covers, and the ones it must always pass to a person, such as refunds above a certain amount, legal complaints or account deletions. Keep the rules short and concrete.

When it hands a ticket over. In Autopilot the assistant escalates to the operator group you set when it can't help. To make a topic always go to a person, create a category for it (Configuration, your assistant, Categories) with escalation as its behaviour, for example "Complaint". When one of your agents comments on a ticket, the assistant recognises a human reply and stays out of it.

When it works. Click Update Zendesk Configuration on the integration page and, under Optional settings, set the Start time and End time of your Working Hours. Set the Time Zone in your assistant's settings in Configuration so the hours are read correctly. Tickets that arrive outside those hours go straight to your operator group.

If you ever need the assistant to stop replying for a while, open Configuration, then Basic, and click Pause in the Auto-replies card. While it is paused, the assistant leaves an internal note on each new Zendesk ticket instead of replying.

Test it before customers see it

1. Ask it your real questions. Open Playground and ask the questions from your top ticket topics, worded the way customers write them. Under each answer, click the line that shows the sources and check which article or document it used. A wrong answer usually means a missing or outdated source; fix that before you rewrite the instructions. Playground replies count toward your monthly messages.
2. Save the important ones as tests. Click Save as test on a conversation that should always come out right, then run your tests from Assistant Tests after every change. The Handed off to a human check locks in the topics that must always reach a person.
3. Start with Copilot if you're unsure. Run Copilot for a week or two and watch the acceptance chart on Analytics. When your agents mostly accept drafts as they are, switch the Mode to Autopilot with Update Zendesk Configuration.

What it doesn't do in Zendesk

A few ChatPal features work on the website chat and messaging apps but stop at Zendesk:

• No booking. Calendly, Altegio, Google Calendar and reminders don't work in Zendesk tickets.
• No product cards. If you connect a Shopify or Horoshop store, the assistant answers product questions in Zendesk, but describes the products in plain text instead of cards.
• No order look-ups. Telling a signed-in Shopify customer where their order is works on the website chat, WhatsApp, Telegram and Instagram, not in Zendesk.
• No replies from ChatPal's inbox. An escalated ticket is assigned to your support group and answered in Zendesk, not from ChatPal's Chats page.
• No lead form. The assistant doesn't ask for contact details in Zendesk conversations.

If your customers also write on WhatsApp, Instagram or your website, the same assistant can answer there, with the features above.

What it costs compared with Zendesk AI

Zendesk includes AI agents in every Suite and Support plan and bills them per automated resolution: a request the AI resolved without passing it to a person. Suite Team includes 5 automated resolutions per agent a month and Suite Professional 10. Beyond that, each one costs $1.50 on a committed volume or $2.00 pay as you go. Zendesk's own Copilot for agents is an add-on at $50 per agent a month, billed yearly.

ChatPal counts each reply its assistant writes, on a flat monthly plan: Free covers 100 replies a month, Starter 500 for $20, Standard 1,500 for $50 and Pro 4,000 for $120, billed monthly. Copilot drafts count as replies too. Either way Zendesk bills your seats, and ChatPal's agent account may need one of its own.

An example, with assumptions you should replace with your own numbers. A team of three agents on Suite Team, with 400 tickets a month, where the AI fully resolves half of them:

• Zendesk AI agents: 200 resolutions minus the 15 included is 185, so $277.50 a month committed, or $370 pay as you go, on top of seats.
• ChatPal Autopilot: the assistant replies to all 400 tickets, including the ones it hands over. At an assumed two AI replies per ticket, that's 800 replies, which fits Standard at $50 a month.
• Copilot for three agents: Zendesk's add-on is $150 a month billed yearly. ChatPal's Copilot mode needs a Zendesk plan with private apps (Suite Growth or above); there, 400 drafts fit Starter's 500 replies at $20 a month.

Per-resolution pricing does have one advantage: you pay nothing for tickets the AI fails to resolve. With ChatPal every reply counts toward your allowance, useful or not, so a queue the assistant can't answer well costs you replies without saving agent time. Test on your real questions first. Zendesk's plans are compared in full in Zendesk pricing explained, and other tools' pricing models in how much an AI chatbot costs.

Zendesk prices were checked on 13 October 2026 on Zendesk's pricing page, in US dollars.

To see what the integration looks like before you connect anything, there's an overview on ChatPal's Zendesk AI agent page. If your team also answers chats on your website, see ChatPal for support teams.

The lowest-risk way to try it is Copilot on the free plan: connect with an API token, install the sidebar app, and let two agents request drafts on real tickets for a week. The acceptance chart on Analytics will tell you whether Autopilot is worth switching on.