[Zoho Desk] Enhance depth of AI features

I spent some time looking at how AI is changing the service desk category and the range is pretty wide. Some tools have added AI features on top of what's still fundamentally a ticketing system. A few are built from the ground up around AI handling requests directly. Most fall somewhere in between. After talking with a few IT and support teams and looking at what's actually in production, these are the platforms that came up most. Not ranking by quality necessarily, just organizing by what each one does well. **1. Tidio**  Tidio started as a live chat and chatbot platform and has been building out its service desk capabilities over the past couple years. The AI agent, Lyro, handles a decent share of common questions automatically and the whole thing lives in a shared inbox that pulls in chat, email, and social. What's nice about it is the simplicity. You can get it running fast, the chatbot builder is intuitive, and for small to mid sized teams that want AI handling the repetitive stuff without a heavy implementation, it does the job. The Lyro AI is conversational enough that it doesn't feel like talking to a form. It's a good fit for customer facing support teams, especially at smaller companies or ecommerce businesses. For internal IT support or complex enterprise environments though, it doesn't really have the depth. There's no deep integration with identity systems, device management, or internal policy logic. It's solving a different problem at a different scale. **2. Console**  Console is the one that surprised me most after actually seeing it in use at a couple of companies. The basic idea is that it automates IT requests before they ever become tickets. It lives directly in Slack and Teams, so employees just describe what they need in natural language. Need access to a system, password reset, software provisioned, policy question answered? Console handles it end to end without a human touching it. The requests that do need a human get routed to the right person with full context already attached. What makes it different from tools that bolt AI onto a ticketing system is that Console actually understands your environment. It knows your users, devices, applications, org structure, and internal policies. So when someone in Slack says "I need access to the analytics dashboard," Console already knows who they are, what role they're in, whether they should have access, and can provision it without anyone filing anything. The thing that stood out to me is that employees actually use it because it meets them where they already are. No new portal, no new app, no ticket form. You just ask in Slack and it either handles it or gets it to the right person. A couple of IT leads I talked to said adoption was essentially instant because there was nothing to adopt. The Playbooks feature is also worth mentioning. Teams can set up predefined workflows for recurring tasks, so when a new hire starts or someone needs a specific sequence of access changes, the whole thing runs automatically. **3. HappyFox**  HappyFox is a straightforward help desk with AI features layered in. Ticket management, knowledge base, automation rules, a clean interface. Nothing flashy but it works. The AI capabilities focus on things like smart ticket assignment, suggested responses, and chatbot deflection. Good fit for smaller teams or organizations that want an AI assisted help desk without the complexity or cost of enterprise platforms. The ceiling is lower than some other tools on this list though. If your needs grow beyond basic ticket management and deflection, you'll probably outgrow it. **4. Zendesk**  Zendesk is the name most people think of first, which makes sense given how long it's been around. The AI features include agents that handle common requests, intelligent triage, and generative AI tools for support staff. The thing I kept hearing from teams though is that it's still fundamentally a ticketing system with AI layered on top. The AI helps you manage tickets faster, but the starting point is still a ticket. For IT and internal support specifically, a few people mentioned it feels like it was designed for customer support first and adapted for internal use cases second. **5. Freshservice**  Freshservice is Freshworks' ITSM product and it's a solid option for mid market teams that want something modern without the complexity of the bigger platforms. The AI features include a virtual agent, automated ticket classification, and predictive analytics. It covers the standard ITSM workflows well. Clean, reasonably priced, and doesn't require a six month implementation. The AI capabilities are more incremental than transformative though. It makes a traditional service desk faster, but the workflow is still ticket in, ticket out. **6. Jira Service Management**  If your engineering and IT teams are already deep in the Atlassian ecosystem, JSM is the natural choice. Incidents and service requests connect directly to development work, which is useful when a support issue traces back to a bug or infrastructure problem. The AI features are focused on virtual agents, smart categorization, and knowledge base suggestions. Competent and well integrated with Atlassian tools. Where it's less strong is for non technical end users. The interface still feels like it was designed for engineering teams, and employees submitting IT requests sometimes find it less intuitive. **7. ServiceNow**  ServiceNow is the incumbent that every large organization has evaluated and many have deployed. The scope is enormous: ITSM, ITOM, HR service delivery, security operations. For organizations already invested in the ecosystem with dedicated admin teams, the AI features add real value on top of what's already there. The reality though is that ServiceNow is heavy. Implementation timelines are long, customization requires specialized skills, and it's expensive. Multiple teams described getting value from ServiceNow as a multi year journey. A few had looked at it, decided the overhead wasn't worth it, and gone with something lighter. **8. Zoho Desk**  Zoho Desk is part of the broader Zoho ecosystem and offers a capable help desk with AI features at a price point that undercuts most of this list. The AI assistant Zia handles sentiment analysis, anomaly detection, and suggested responses. If you're already using Zoho CRM or other Zoho products, the integration is seamless. Practical choice for cost conscious teams. The AI features are functional but not as deep as some of the purpose built tools here. The thing that became clear looking across all of these is that there's a real difference between tools that use AI to make ticketing faster and tools that use AI to skip the ticket entirely. Most platforms on this list fall into the first category. They make a traditional service desk more efficient, but the workflow is still someone submits a request, it becomes a ticket, and AI helps process it. The one that stood out was the one that starts before the ticket, understanding what someone needs and resolving it directly. That's a different architecture and a different result for the teams running it.