Back in October 2025, I interviewed Tom Eggemeier, CEO of Zendesk, and during our chat, Eggemeier introduced me to the idea of a 'service dividend'.
This idea holds that, while some companies are focused on pocketing the cost savings that come from applying AI to the bottom line, the most innovative brands in the world are starting to view those savings as a service dividend and are reinvesting them into their service experience, believing it will create a loyalty loop.
At the time, I thought it was an elegant way to describe both the choice facing service and experience leaders and the mindset shift underway, which spoke to the realities of getting the most out of CX AI investments and how to use them to drive better customer, employee, and business outcomes.
Since then, I've been thinking a lot about the service dividend idea, particularly how service and support leaders are using the capacity freed up by their CX investments, and how automation is reshaping the nature and shape of work in the service and support space.
Zendesk Relate: Setting the Scene
With that in mind, I was excited to be invited to Zendesk Relate, Zendesk's annual customer event, held in Denver a couple of weeks ago. I thought it would be a great opportunity to catch up on all things Zendesk and to explore how many service and support leaders are embracing the service dividend idea.
As with every CX technology customer event, there were a lot of announcements.
To catch you up, here's an overview of the key announcements that stood out for me:
- Zendesk announced its vision for the Autonomous Service Workforce, in which specialised AI agents will work seamlessly alongside human experts as a unified team, powered by its Resolution Platform, announced last year, and enhanced by the inclusion of a "Resolution Learning Loop" that enables the system to learn and improve continuously from every interaction.
- Outcome-Based Pricing, where businesses will only pay for interactions that are verifiably resolved end-to-end by AI, completely excluding spam or routine unhelpful exchanges.
- Expanded Zendesk AI Agents: By leveraging its recent acquisition of Forethought, Zendesk AI Agents now operate seamlessly across email, messaging, voice, and even external third-party platforms (accelerated by the recent Forethought acquisition and the introduction of Zendesk's MCP Server). Moreover, Voice AI Agents now support over 60 languages and can switch languages mid-conversation without losing context.
A suite of specialized AI assistants to help your human team members:
- Agent Copilot: By connecting to internal and external sources, this AI assistant is designed to work out of the box and take action on at least 30% of tickets from day one.
- Admin Copilot: This assistant is designed to monitor the health of your Zendesk instance, flag operational bottlenecks, and recommend or apply workflow fixes in real time.
- Knowledge Copilot: This co-pilot autonomously analyses customer conversations in real time to identify knowledge gaps, draft new articles, and flag outdated content.
- Analyst Copilot: Allows leaders to interrogate their data in natural language, helping service and support leaders uncover the "why" behind trends and gain actionable insights.
Reading through that summary, it's clear they have been hard at work, and their efforts have been amplified and accelerated by some excellent acquisitions (for example, HyperArc and Forethought).
Moreover, based on the customer conversations I had on the conference floor, the announcements were well received, and there was a sense of excitement at the possibilities on offer.
The Service Dividend in Practice
Amid all those conversations and announcements, I had the chance to catch up with Eggemeier again to revisit the service dividend idea.
I specifically wanted to ask him about a comment he'd made during a briefing, in which he noted that Zendesk, using their own tools, have been able to automate 60% of their Tier 1 and Tier 2 service enquiries, freeing up a huge amount of capacity.
