Signal
The service incidents reported in October and November 2025 around AI Agents, Facebook integrations, and Analytics suggest Zendesk may be struggling to maintain the reliability and scalability of its rapidly expanding AI capabilities. The concentrated issues in specific pods and the mention of "staged rollouts" indicate potential architectural challenges in Zendesk's ability to consistently deliver AI-powered features across its platform.
Implications
Enterprise architects and implementation leads should closely monitor Zendesk's ability to resolve these AI-related incidents without disrupting mission-critical customer service operations. The potential for performance degradation, integration failures, and permission issues could significantly impact the reliability and user experience of Zendesk deployments relying on advanced AI features. Experts should factor in the risk of Zendesk's AI roadmap outpacing its ability to ensure platform stability and scalability.
Watch
- Frequency and severity of AI-related service incidents: Indicates Zendesk's progress in hardening its AI infrastructure and integrations
- Rollout timelines and success rates for new AI features: Provides insight into Zendesk's capacity to deliver on its AI vision without compromising platform stability
- Zendesk's communication and transparency around AI-related challenges: Reflects the vendor's commitment to addressing technical debt and supporting enterprise-grade deployments
Nico's Commentary
Yesterday we were in London for some networking and meetings and had breakfast with our friends at Geckoboard. You can hear our thoughts on Zendesk metrics for the AI age here!
I'm sure the asset management must have been a feature requested by *someone* but for me it demonstrates a confusing lack of focus. However, I spoke to a couple of ecosystem vendors yesterday who independently said the same thing. When a new tool is added to the Zendesk platform, it drives adoption of more mature offerings in that same area. Bluntly, businesses say "oh we actually were needing asset management" and try the Zendesk product, see it is something they do need but want a dedicated tool and then sales climb for others.
You might have spotted that we now have a little alert from the Zendesk status page on the top right above this text box. It's not quite real time at the moment but I think it's handy to have that information here. What do you think? Let me know!