Announcing help center authentication for the Web Widget

Announced on | Rollout starts | Rollout ends
July 21, 2025 | July 18, 2025 | July 21, 2025

Zendesk is excited to announce help center authentication for messaging. This feature provides a seamless authentication experience for messaging end users engaging with the Web Widget in a Zendesk-based help center.

This announcement includes the following topics:

What is changing?

Why is Zendesk making this change?

What do I need to do?

What is changing?

This new help center authentication feature is exclusive to Web Widgets embedded within the Zendesk help center and does not apply to Zendesk Mobile SDKs.

When help center authentication is turned on for the Web Widget, interactions with the Web Widget by end users who are signed into the help center automatically adopt the user's signed-in identity. The user's name and email address can be shared with the bots and agents engaging with them.

If an end user signs in after they've begin a conversation in the Web Widget, their previous unauthenticated session is updated or merged with their authenticated profile. This allows the end user to continue their conversation seamlessly as an authenticated user.

For Web Widgets embedded outside of the Zendesk help center, authentication remains unchanged. JWT-based user authentication remains the only option for authenticating messaging end users in this case.

Additionally, with this release, the verified check that indicates an end user is authenticated has moved from beside their external ID to beside their name.

Why is Zendesk making this change?

This change simplifies end user authentication for messaging by eliminating extra development on your part to authenticate users in the Web Widget.

What do I need to do?

To begin using this feature, check your Web Widget settings and ensure Turn on help center authentication is selected. If you participated in the EAP or are activating the Web Widget for the first time, no action is required and this setting will be selected by default. See Turning help center authentication for messaging on and off or Authenticating messaging users in the help center through the API.

If you have feedback or questions related to this announcement, visit our community forum where we collect and manage customer product feedback. For general assistance with your Zendesk products, contact Zendesk Customer Support.