Zendesk Acquires Unleash to Enhance AI-first Employee Service Business

Adds generative AI enterprise search, permission-based RAG, and deep channel integrations to accelerate time to value for internal support

Zendesk announced its acquisition of Unleash, an AI-powered enterprise search platform designed to connect knowledge across systems for smarter employee service.

The acquisition enables Zendesk to provide fast, accurate answers to employees directly in their everyday collaboration channels. Since the AI strictly follows the company’s data permissions and security policies, teams can trust that every response delivered is accurate and compliant. By unifying knowledge across company systems and connecting it to case management, automation, and analytics, Zendesk helps organizations resolve employee issues faster, automate routine questions, and reduce the cost and complexity of internal support.

Unleash’s technology strengthens Zendesk’s platform with:

• Enterprise search and permission-based RAG across 70+ content sources, including Google Drive, Confluence, and SharePoint.
• Native AI knowledge agents in Slack and Microsoft Teams, with built-in hand-off and frictionless escalation to human experts.
• A robust connector library with secure, fine-grained access controls applied at query time.
• AI agents built with true end-to-end organizational context—giving employees instant access to meaningful insights from across their company’s data.

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Integrating Unleash into Zendesk’s employee service workflows delivers faster time to resolution for high-impact internal support situations while maintaining enterprise-grade security and privacy. It also enhances Zendesk’s broader customer service offerings by extending the same trusted AI, governance, and workflow capabilities to both internal and external support needs.

“As organizations rapidly adopt AI, rethinking how they deliver internal employee support is becoming mission-critical. Zendesk’s acquisition of Unleash puts AI directly in the flow of work, delivering secure, permission-based answers from across company systems so employees get instant self-service with seamless handoffs to human experts when needed,” said Shashi Upadhyay, President of Product, Engineering and AI at Zendesk.

“This acquisition aligns directly with our mission to make information accessible and actionable right where work happens,” said Itay Itzhaki, Co-founder and CEO at Unleash. “Our AI-powered search and retrieval technology will help companies deliver faster, smarter employee support by making knowledge easier to access and use – all while keeping security and privacy at the forefront.”