Announcing improved quality and consistency for generative search and quick answers

Announced on | Rollout starts on | Rollout ends on
March 5, 2026 | March 5, 2026 | March 6, 2026

We're excited to announce an important update to generative search in help center and quick answers in Agent Workspace. This update increases the accuracy and consistency of AI-generated responses across experiences by aligning the underlying retrieval pipeline with the same one that powers AI Agents.

This announcement includes the following topics:

What’s changing?

Why is Zendesk making this change?

What do I need to do?

What’s changing?

With this update, the retrieval and generation pipeline used by generative search in help center and quick answers in Agent Workspace is now powered by the same retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system that underpins AI Agents. Previously, some responses could feel narrow or inconsistent because they were primarily based on the first matching article returned by search.

The improved pipeline provides the following benefits:

AI responses evaluate and draw from the most relevant parts of the most relevant articles across your help center and external indexed content.

Answers delivered in generative search, quick answers, and AI Agents are now aligned and consistent in both style and substance.

Why is Zendesk making this change?

Customers and agents were seeing differences in answers between experiences (especially between generative search and quick answers versus AI Agents) because the old pipeline tended to summarize only the top-ranked result rather than a broader context.

By unifying the retrieval and generation approach across experiences, we can ensure the following:

More accurate responses that are grounded in a more comprehensive context pulled from your curated content.

Answer consistency regardless of where the question originates (for example, help center, Agent Workspace, or within AI Agents).

Better relevance since AI can now consider the breadth of your knowledge base and external content, instead of just a single article.

This improvement reflects Zendesk’s ongoing commitment to powering AI features that uplift support quality and ensure your customers and support teams get the right answer, faster.

What do I need to do?

There’s no action required on your part to benefit from this update. The improved pipeline will automatically enhance how generative search and quick answers generate responses once the rollout is complete.

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. Your guidance helps shape future refinements to our AI platform.