Editing and managing intents

Verified AI summary ◀▼
Manage intents to tailor intelligent triage to your business needs. Edit intent names and descriptions to match your organization's terminology, but note that existing triggers and tags won't update automatically. Restore default names if needed. Deactivate or activate intents based on relevance, keeping in mind that deactivated intents won't be detected in new tickets, affecting related business rules.


As part of intelligent triage, your account includes a
prebuilt list of default intents specific to your industry that predict what a ticket is
about. To address your specific business needs, you might also create custom intents or accept suggestions for new intents that intelligent triage
provides based on your ticket data.
You can edit and manage default intents, suggested intents, and any custom intents you
create by editing names and descriptions. Intents can also be deactivated and activated
as needed.
To manage any duplicate or overlapping intents, see Resolving intent conflicts.
This article contains the following topics:

Editing intent names and
descriptions

Restoring an intent name to its
default value

Deactivating or activating
intents

Related articles:

Accessing and viewing intelligent triage
intents
Automatically detecting customer intent,
language, and sentiment



Editing intent names and descriptions

You can edit an intent’s name or description in any supported language to better
reflect the terminology preferred by your organization.
Intelligent triage continues to detect tickets based on the original intent, even
after its been edited. Because of this, you should only edit intent names to make
small adjustments to an intent’s terminology, not updates that completely change the
meaning of an intent.
Keep in mind that when you edit an intent name:
Existing ticket triggers that use the
Ticket > Intent condition will not be updated with the new name.
Any associated tags using the intent's name will
not be updated with the new name.


To edit an intent name or description



In Admin Center, click
AI in the sidebar, then select Intelligent triage > Intent.

(Optional) Change the language by clicking Actions > View language
and select the language you want to edit intents for.
Browse, search, or filter the list to find the intent you want to edit.
Hover your mouse over the intent, click the options ( ) icon, and select Edit intent.

Update the Name or Description of the intent.

Click Save changes. The intent is automatically marked with an Edited
label to let you know that it has been changed from its original
name.





Restoring an intent name to its default value

If needed, you can also restore an edited intent's name to its default name.
To restore an intent name to its default value




In Admin Center, click
AI in the sidebar, then select Intelligent triage > Intent.

Browse, search, or filter to find the intent you want to
restore.
Click the options ( ) icon, and select Restore default
name.





Deactivating or activating an intent

You can deactivate both default and custom intents that aren’t useful for your
account anymore.
Zendesk may deactivate intent values if the intent is no longer available
or relevant to your account. Intent values may also be reactivated by Zendesk if
they become relevant again.
You can reactivate intents values as needed but can’t reactivate intents
that were deactivated by Zendesk.
When you deactivate an intent or Zendesk deactivates an intent, the intent
will no longer be detected in new tickets. If you have any business rules, such as
triggers, view or automations, that are based on the deactivated intent, they will
stop working. Deactivated intents still appear in Explore reports.

At least one default intent must remain active.
To deactivate or activate an intent

In Admin Center, click
AI in the sidebar, then select Intelligent triage > Intent.
Browse or search to find the intent you want to deactivate or activate.
Hover your mouse over the intent, click the options ( ) icon, and select Activate or
Deactivate.

Confirm your selection by clicking either Activate intent or
Deactivate intent.
The intent’s status is
updated in the intent list. Deactivated intents are labeled “Inactive”. If
you’ve activated an intent, the “Inactive” label is removed.





{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "TechArticle",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9488233422746",
"url": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9488233422746-Editing-and-managing-intents",
"headline": "Editing and managing intents",
"description": "You can edit, restore, activate, or deactivate intents to customize how intelligent triage detects and manages ticket topics according to your organization's terminology and relevance.",
"articleSection": "Using Intelligent triage ticket predictions",
"datePublished": "2025-07-15T21:18:52+00:00",
"dateModified": "2026-03-02T17:10:28+00:00",
"inLanguage": "en-US",
"mainEntityOfPage": {
"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/9488233422746"
},
"author": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com"
},
"publisher": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com"
},
"isPartOf": {
"@type": "WebSite",
"name": "Zendesk Help",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/"
},
"about": {
"@type": "SoftwareApplication",
"name": "Zendesk",
"@id": "https://www.zendesk.com",
"softwareAddOn": {
"@type": "SoftwareApplication",
"name": "Copilot",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/4405303717658"
}
}
}
//
const ai_summary_style = document.createElement('style');
ai_summary_style.innerHTML = `#styled-article-body{padding:0 0 0}#article-body #docs-ai-summary{background-color:#f3f3f3;border:1px solid #d3d3d3;padding:10px 10px 6px;margin-bottom:16px}#article-body #docs-ai-summary #docs-ai-summary-toggle{font-size:.9em;font-weight:700;margin-bottom:4px;cursor:pointer;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center}#article-body #docs-ai-summary #docs-ai-summary-toggle #up-triangle{margin-left:auto;padding-right:10px;display:none}#article-body #docs-ai-summary #docs-ai-summary-toggle #down-triangle{margin-left:auto;padding-right:10px}#article-body #docs-ai-summary #docs-ai-summary-content{font-size:.9em;padding-left:25px;padding-right:25px;margin-bottom:12px}`;
document.head.appendChild(ai_summary_style);

const toggleAISummary = () => {
const summary = document.getElementById("docs-ai-summary-content");
const upTriangle = document.getElementById("up-triangle");
const downTriangle = document.getElementById("down-triangle");
if (summary.style.display === "none") {
summary.style.display = "block";
upTriangle.style.display = "none";
downTriangle.style.display = "inline";
} else {
summary.style.display = "none";
upTriangle.style.display = "inline";
downTriangle.style.display = "none";
}
};

document.getElementById("docs-ai-summary-toggle").addEventListener("click", toggleAISummary);
//