From Salesforce's major ITSM push to Zendesk's slew of fresh AI features, here are extracts from some of this week’s most popular news stories.
Salesforce Makes Its Big ITSM Launch, Talks Differentiators Over ServiceNow
Salesforce has launched its new IT service management (ITSM) product: Agentforce IT Service.
ITSM solutions help IT teams manage the services they offer across the enterprise. That includes troubleshooting, configuring devices, running applications, granting access to them, and more.
As teased last month, Agentforce IT Service will become a key fixture of Service Cloud, as Agentforce for HR Service did in May earlier this year.
HR Service solutions similarly support issue resolution, handle requests for vacation, update employee personnel details, and more.
With these two additions, Service Cloud is suddenly much more than a customer support application; it’s a full-scale service platform.
That’s a critical differentiator that Kishan Chetan, EVP and GM for Service Cloud at Salesforce, stressed when answering how Agentforce IT Service can have success in an already consolidated ITSM market, led by ServiceNow.
“Everything we’ve created lives on one unified platform,” said Chetan.
Other solutions often have separate platforms for employees and fulfillers, creating integration overhead. Salesforce removes that friction.
ServiceNow may soon contest this, as it rolls out its new AI Experience offering. Nevertheless, Chetan highlighted other differentiators, starting with its native Agentforce agents embedded at the Agentforce IT Service solution’s core. As the vendor claims, it’s not a legacy system retrofitted for AI (Read on...).
Zendesk Unveils Major AI Push – Voice, Admin Co-Pilot, and HyperArc Take Center Stage
Zendesk has announced a major expansion of its AI portfolio, introducing a series of new capabilities that bring more automation, intelligence, and flexibility to its Resolution Platform.
Revealed at the company’s AI Summit, the upgrades span across contact center, employee service, and platform administration.
Among the slew of releases, the headline-grabbers are with the launch of fully autonomous Voice AI Agents, new low/no-code building tools, and powerful analytics through its HyperArc acquisition.
The announcement signals Zendesk’s ongoing commitment to accelerating service resolution at scale and deepening its AI leadership.
But as Matthias Goehler, Zendesk CTO for EMEA, explained in an exclusive interview with CX Today, this is also about “closing the loop between AI and human service, and bringing everything together in one place.”
Voice AI Comes to the Fore
For those of you who have ever had the misfortune of getting stuck in a mind-numbing, seemingly never-ending IVR loop, the promise of Voice AI Agents will be music to your ears.
Equipped with fully autonomous AI-powered voice capabilities, Zendesk’ Voice AI Agents are designed to handle complex queries without the clunky IVR trees that have tested the patience of even the most Zen customers (Read on...).
