Zendesk, AWS deepen AI-powered contact center partnership

CALIFORNIA and WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES — Zendesk and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have announced a strategic collaboration agreement to accelerate AI-powered contact center innovation. 

The collaboration will ensure that Amazon Connect voice and analytics are combined with Zendesk Contact Center, modernizing the globally recognized customer service processes with integrated AI and automation. 

Zendesk’s SaaS platform runs on AWS cloud

Zendesk is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company offering a unified customer service and engagement platform that includes omnichannel support, AI-assisted automation, and powerful analytics to enhance client relationships.

The technological foundation of this focus on facilitating business-customer contact is the scalable cloud infrastructure of industry giants.

Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing business Amazon began in 2006, offers basic on-demand information technology infrastructure and capabilities, such as compute capacity and storage, up to sophisticated artificial intelligence solutions, enabling businesses around the world to innovate and develop. 

AWS continues to strengthen its services despite a major outage that exposed the critical, widespread risk of funneling all contact center channels through a single cloud region, forcing businesses to confront the urgent need for diversified communications infrastructure and purpose-built voice continuity plans.

Zendesk, AWS unify fragmented contact center tech with AI

The joint venture directly addresses an endemic industry challenge: contact centers are already experiencing fragmented technology that impairs productivity and slows customer service. 

“This collaboration helps Zendesk build the next generation of agent-centric solutions, where AI is seamlessly integrated — not bolted on — ensuring every interaction across channels, agents, and systems drives resolution,” said Adrian McDermott, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Zendesk.

Zendesk and AWS will collaborate to create a single-unit voice, digital, and artificial intelligence device that serves as an agent-centered platform. It aims to eliminate the incompatibility between legacy and fragmented stacks so that artificial intelligence becomes a natural part of the workflow rather than an appendix.

By building Zendesk Contact Center on Amazon Connect and powering it with Zendesk’s AI platform alongside Amazon Bedrock, the alliance provides a scalable, flexible Contact Center-as-a-Service (CCaaS) solution. 

The combined offering brings together AI, channels, and agent tools from the beginning, connecting systems and teams to handle customer inquiries more quickly across all platforms. The objective is a singular, scalable platform that keeps agents productive and customers satisfied by streamlining operations and retiring disjointed legacy systems.

AI partnership boosts FCR and slashes after-contact work

This expanded collaboration is underscored by a proven track record of delivering concrete operational improvements for joint customers, as highlighted by Zendesk’s recognition as the AWS Customer Experience Partner of the Year (Technology) – Global. 

The partnership is engineered to translate technological integration into direct business value by enhancing customer experiences, improving agent efficiency, and building organizational trust through human-AI collaboration.

“This Strategic Collaboration Agreement deepens our partnership by connecting Amazon Connect’s AI capabilities—including agents that reason and assist representatives—with Zendesk’s automation platform,” said Pasquale DeMaio, Vice President of Amazon Connect at AWS.

Their delivery with TELUS Digital demonstrates these tangible outcomes. By deploying Zendesk Contact Center on AWS infrastructure for a telecommunications client, they achieved a five percentage point increase in First Contact Resolution (FCR) and a 50% reduction in after-contact work time. 

These findings confirm that the partnership is committed to empowering agents with AI-powered solutions that can enhance service quality and operational efficiency worldwide, helping those who want to transform their contact centers.

As Jamie Timm, SVP, Global Delivery and Operations, TELUS Digital, notes, “Working with AWS and Zendesk, TELUS Digital recently transformed customer support for a leading telecommunications client by deploying 24/7 asynchronous messaging powered by Zendesk Contact Center on the AWS secure, global infrastructure.”

Under this agreement, Zendesk will sell a joint solution from its Resolution Platform and Amazon Connect on the AWS Marketplace over the next few months. 

The companies underline that this enhanced relationship builds on an existing relationship to help businesses meet increasing customer expectations quickly, responsively, and consistently.

“Together, we’re empowering human-AI collaboration to enhance customer experiences, improve efficiency, and build trust,” DeMaio concludes.