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AI Agents-Essential end-of-life

  • April 29, 2026
  • 4 replies
  • 41 views
D

Today I got a 2nd email announcement about the coming end-of-life for AI Agents-Essential. This email notes that the changes are rolling out starting April 27 (i.e., 2 days ago). But if you link to the announcement post, you’ll note that the rollout has slipped a month (to May 25-June 12) with no change to the end-of-support/end-of-life dates.

The post also notes “In the coming months, we’ll share detailed timelines, transition plans, and guidance to help you transition to the upgraded AI agent experience.” (emphasis added). Those details, plans, and guidance should be in place now. The schedule has barely 2 months from the end of the rollout window until the end-of-support date.

We have a Professional instance - no sandbox. Any changes we need to make are to our production environment. This is fraught with risk. Setting up AI Agents-Essential for email was trivial and works well. Reading the documentation for email for AI Agents-Professional makes my head spin with the level of complexity, coupled with the fact that almost all of the documentation was written in the context of chatbots, not email.

What does Zendesk intend to do to give us some level of confidence that this transition will be managed properly for instances like ours (no sandbox, email AI Agents only) such that our existing functionality will be carried forward with little to no risk to our production environments?

Please don’t tell me “hire AI Expert services”. We don’t have the funds for that. If we had that level of funds, we’d have Enterprise license and a sandbox to de-risk with.

We need real answers from Zendesk on this.

    4 replies

    K
    • KROB
    • Newcomer
    • May 1, 2026

    I agree that it can seem daunting. I’ve been using the current “Essentials” agent since 2023, back when it was originally considered the “Advanced” agent, and that was a lot to learn.

    From what I understand, there will be a guided process to set it up. We are in the same boat here - using Suite Professional with no sandbox. Based on my experience, it helps to start with replies using knowledge content and add use cases over time. I’ve documented all of our current flows and written myself a “guidebook” of sorts to help with the transition since from what I’ve been told, there will be no way to convert the current AI agent into the new one. Documenting any instructions and flows you currently have set up will be key to getting the best results from the advanced agents. While it takes time, you’ll be glad to have made those preparations when you start working on the new agent.

    Keep in mind that the new version will allow you to write prompt based flows. What I found helpful was documenting each step in my current flows and then you can feed that into ChatGPT or other preferred AI tool, asking it to create a prompt to be used for a Zendesk Advanced AI agent flow.

    While I know it’s stressful, I believe it will ultimately be a good thing. Bug fixes end in August, with EOL actually scheduled for December, so you’ve got a bit of time.

    KR
    D

    Thanks, ​@KROB. We set up Essentials when it was launched for email/webform last fall. We don’t use messaging/chat, only autoreplies (and currently have no plans to use chat/messaging). We only have a couple of Instructions; I will make sure to save those off.
    I am frankly baffled by the documentation for Advanced re email. Essentials doesn’t require any configuration, really. Just connect it to brand/data source and channels, and “poof” autoreplies start happening. Nothing of “flows” or “use cases” exists. I don’t really have any clue how to get started, especially since the documentation is almost entirely written assuming chat bots, not email/webform.

    K
    • KROB
    • Newcomer
    • May 4, 2026

    For the most part, focus on anything that would require collection of information before being forwarded to an agent, along with any external connections that require APIs. The content sources should be the same. If you don’t require APIs or collection of specific details, you shouldn’t have a ton of work to do during setup. One benefit is that customers can ask follow up questions, which is going to greatly improve the resolution rates. 

    KR
    E

    I understand your concern—this kind of transition feels risky, especially without a sandbox to test things safely. Sudden timeline changes and limited guidance can make it even more stressful.

    From my experience working on tools like stipendiocalcolatore.it, even small changes in core functionality (like email workflows or calculations) can impact real users quickly if not handled carefully. That’s why having clear migration steps and proper documentation is so important before rolling out such updates.

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