# What is an AI help desk? > An AI help desk adds three things to ticketing: help for agents, an AI agent that answers customers, and AI analytics and QA. What each layer does, how vendors price it, and what to ask before you buy. Published: 19 September 2026 · Updated: 19 September 2026 · Prices and figures verified: 18 September 2026 · By the help-desk.reviews team This page was researched and drafted with AI assistance from the sources listed on it. We have not run hands-on tests of these products. Method: [How we review](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/how-we-review) An AI help desk is a help desk with AI in three separate layers: tools that help agents write and understand replies, an AI agent that answers customers directly, and analytics that read conversations for quality and trends. Vendors sell the three differently, usually as a per-agent add-on, a usage charge and a bundle, so the useful question is not whether a product has AI but which layers you need and how each is billed. **The short version** - **Agent assist** drafts, summarises and suggests. It is usually priced **per agent**, or included in higher plans. - **The customer-facing AI agent** answers customers on its own. It is usually priced **by usage**: per resolution, outcome or session. - **AI analytics and QA** score conversations and surface trends. It is often a separate bundle or a higher plan. - Each layer has its own billing unit, so **ask for the unit's written definition** before you compare prices. - Vendor success rates are claims. Prefer figures from **named customers**, and model the cost yourself in the [true-cost calculator](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/tools/true-cost-calculator). ## Layer 1: agent assist Agent assist works inside the agent's screen. Typical features are a suggested reply drafted from past answers and help articles, a summary of a long thread, tone and grammar rewriting, suggested ticket fields, and answers to an agent's question about internal documentation. The agent stays in control and the customer never talks to the AI directly. It is sold in three ways. Some vendors include it in a plan: Help Scout includes AI Drafts from its Plus plan, and Zoho Desk includes its Zia assistant from Professional. Some sell it per agent per month: Zendesk Copilot costs US$50, Intercom Copilot US$29 and Freddy AI Copilot on Freshdesk US$29. The billing rules matter as much as the price: Zendesk requires Copilot on every agent seat once it is bought, while Freshworks lets you buy it for any number of agents. ## Layer 2: the customer-facing AI agent The AI agent, sometimes still called a chatbot, answers customers in chat, email or messaging using your help centre and other approved content, and in more advanced setups takes actions such as looking up an order. When it cannot help, it hands the conversation to a person. This layer is almost always sold by usage, and each vendor defines its unit differently. Help Scout charges US$0.75 per resolution. Intercom charges US$0.99 per outcome for Fin. Freshdesk sells Freddy AI Agent sessions in packs of 100 for US$49. Zendesk's pricing page lists US$1.50 per automated resolution on a committed volume, although its help centre describes a newer allowance model whose per-resolution prices are not public. Zoho Desk meters Zia AI Agents in tokens, with 30 million free a month and a credit price it does not publish. The difference between a resolution, an outcome and a session changes what you pay for the same work. Our guide to [per-seat vs per-resolution pricing](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/guides/per-seat-vs-per-resolution-pricing) explains the definitions. ## Layer 3: AI analytics and quality assurance The third layer reads conversations after the fact. It can score every conversation against a QA rubric instead of a sampled few, detect sentiment and topics, flag conversations at risk, and report on what the AI agent failed to answer. It is usually packaged with workforce management or sold in a higher plan: Zendesk's Workforce Engagement Bundle, for example, costs US$50 per agent a month. It matters most to larger teams with a dedicated QA or operations role. ## What to ask vendors 1. **Which layers are included in the plan I am buying, and which are add-ons?** Get the answer per plan, not per product. 2. **What exactly is the billable unit of the AI agent?** Ask for the written definition, including what happens when a customer comes back, goes silent or asks for a person. 3. **Is there a free allowance, and does it reset?** Some are monthly, some are once per account. 4. **Can I cap spending?** A monthly limit stops a spike in traffic from becoming a spike in the bill. 5. **Must the agent-assist add-on be bought for every seat?** 6. **Which model providers process our data, and is it used for training?** See the [data protection law guide](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/guides/help-desk-software-and-data-protection-law) and our list of [help desks with EU data residency](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/best/with-eu-data-residency). 7. **Which customers, by name, report the resolution rate you quote?** ## Reading AI claims Resolution rates on vendor homepages are rarely comparable. Help Scout's pricing page uses 73% as its default AI Answers resolution rate; the one named customer with a published figure, eCatholic, reports 15.5% of conversations deflected. Fin's site cites 76%; its named customer Robin reports 50%. Neither pair measures the same thing in the same way, and we have measured neither. Treat vendor figures as the upper end of a range, and plan with a lower number. Our [how we review](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/how-we-review) page explains how we label who stands behind each figure. To see the products side by side, start with our [best AI help desk software](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/best/ai-help-desk-software) list, then decide whether you need the paid layer at all with [do you need the AI add-on?](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/guides/do-you-need-the-ai-add-on) ## Frequently asked questions ### Is an AI help desk the same as a chatbot? No. The customer-facing AI agent is one of three layers. An AI help desk also includes AI for agents and, often, AI analytics. A chatbot bolted onto a website usually lacks the ticket history and handoff that make the other layers useful. ### Do I need all three layers? Rarely at first. Small teams usually get the most from agent assist, especially where it is included in the plan. The AI agent pays off when a large share of questions are repetitive and answered in your help centre. ### Why is AI priced per resolution instead of per seat? Because the AI agent does work that would otherwise need more seats, vendors price it by the work done. Per-resolution pricing ties cost to volume, which is fair when the unit is defined strictly and expensive when it is not. See [per-seat vs per-resolution pricing](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/guides/per-seat-vs-per-resolution-pricing). ### Can I use AI from one vendor with another vendor's help desk? Sometimes. Some AI agents are sold standalone and connect to other help desks, which can be useful during a migration. Check what data the standalone agent can read and write in your current tool. > **Scored on a public rubric, from prices and documents you can open.** Every score on this site comes from six published criteria: true cost with AI on, pricing transparency, AI as documented, access and switching, channels and languages, and data protection. The cost level is arithmetic on the vendor's list prices. Each price comes from one product database and links to its source, so every page agrees with every other page. The order of our lists is set by our editors and does not always follow the score. Rubric v1.0 · Scores rate list prices and public documentation. We have not run hands-on tests yet, and no page here claims we did. [Read the full method](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/how-we-review) ## Keep reading - [Help desk vs shared inbox](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/guides/help-desk-vs-shared-inbox) - [Per-seat vs per-resolution pricing](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/guides/per-seat-vs-per-resolution-pricing) - [Do you need the AI add-on?](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/guides/do-you-need-the-ai-add-on) - [Help desk migration checklist](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/guides/help-desk-migration-checklist) - [Best help desk software](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/best/help-desk-software) - [Help desk true-cost calculator](https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/tools/true-cost-calculator) --- Canonical: https://help-desk.reviews/en-gb/guides/what-is-an-ai-help-desk