Zendesk, the provider of customer service software and support ticketing systems based in San Francisco, California, has acquired Cleverly, an artificial intelligence (AI) platform company headquartered in Lisbon, Portugal. Zendesk will integrate Cleverly’s technology across existing products, enabling teams to automate more processes while keeping up with customer demand, the company announced in a blog post on its website.
Shawna Wolverton, Zendesk executive vice president, said the acquisition will deliver a range of capabilities to automate key insights, further reduce manual tasks, and improve workflows, generating more productive support teams as a result. “Cleverly and Zendesk share a vision of democratizing AI, as well as a passion for creating practical applications that make it possible for businesses to get started with AI right out of the box—without a team of data scientists required,” she added.
Alongside the acquisition, Zendesk added new features to its software as a service (SaaS) ticketing system, including workflow automation on social media customer service channels. Zendesk can report on the performance of a brand’s automation strategy, such as the number of conversations engaged with bots and interactions escalated to an agent. It also suggests macros that leverage machine learning (ML) to recommend a response based on ticket context, employing prebuilt integrations with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Monday.com to keep teams connected.
Zendesk is used by more than 200,000 companies for managing customer queries, providing support, and building customer relationships. The platform incudes Zendesk Support—a call center and ticketing system; Zendesk Chat—a web and mobile messaging system; and Zendesk Insights—a customer service analytics solution.
For its part, the Cleverly platform provides a series of AI-powered capabilities, including a triage function to automatically tag incoming service requests to help categorize workflow. With conversation volume increasing every year, businesses are increasingly turning to AI to provide faster and more reliable service as customer support teams struggle to keep up with demand.
Cleverly also has what it refers to as AI-powered human augmentation with its agent assist capability that aims to help customer service agents provide the right answers to inquiries. The platform can integrate with help desk, FAQ, and customer relationship management (CRM) software to identify knowledge gaps and automate replies for common customer queries. Cleverly customers include telecom giant Vodafone and New York City-based password manager firm Dashlane. Financial terms of the deal are not being publicly disclosed at this time.
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Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
