Employee Engagement
AI Agents and People Experience: Zendesk’s Mitch Young on redefining workplaces
AI agents provide immediate, consistent responses to routine queries, reducing wait times and significantly improving employee satisfaction, underlined Young.
As industries adapt to hybrid work models, rising attrition, and the growing expectations of digital-native employees, AI-powered employee experience tools, particularly AI agents, are emerging as game-changers.
In an exclusive conversation with People Matters, Mitch Young, Senior Vice President, APAC at Zendesk, shares how AI agents are reshaping the way companies deliver workplace support, offering personalised, always-on assistance, improving engagement, and giving leaders the insights they need to build resilient, people-first organisations.
Read here the edited excerpts from the interview:
Industries are witnessing a rise of AI agents in the workplace. How can AI agents integrated into employee experience platforms help companies manage the complexities of new work arrangements?
The growing use of AI agents in the workplace is a response to the evolving ways organisations operate and support their workforces. With hybrid working models still commonplace, businesses need digital solutions that offer both agility and stability—and AI agents have become core to this transformation. They automate day-to-day HR and IT support, route requests intelligently, and streamline interactions around the clock, making operations more resilient even as teams work from different locations or time zones.
AI agents provide immediate, consistent responses to routine queries—reducing wait times and significantly improving employee satisfaction. By delivering unified, company-approved information, they eliminate confusion, particularly during periods of policy change or organisational evolution.
For both employees and employers, the result is a win-win. Employees enjoy frictionless experiences that boost satisfaction and productivity, while organisations gain operational efficiency and resilience.
In this context, AI agents are becoming key partners in enabling a smarter, faster, and more responsive workforce.
How can AI-driven employee experience tools effectively provide personalized support to diverse workforce?
Supporting a diverse workforce presents unique challenges. AI-driven employee service platforms excel by delivering tailored support for individual needs at scale, while keeping experiences consistent across geographies.
By connecting HR and IT systems into a single platform, employees can access personalised assistance 24/7, wherever they are–even outside standard office hours. This capability ensures that support and resources are always available, not limited by location or time of day.
Integrations with core solutions like Workday add further context, making assistance more relevant and timely. AI-powered analytics also empower managers to track workforce trends, uncover emerging needs, and adapt policies in real time.
This level of personalisation, delivered efficiently and at scale, is becoming increasingly important as organisations grow more complex and geographically dispersed. Mercer’s Global Talent Trends 2024 report underscores that AI is now fundamental for creating “individualised and meaningful experiences at scale” in the workplace, helping companies adapt their support strategies and unlock tangible improvements in engagement and productivity.
With the tech industry facing high turnover rates, how can improving employee experience help companies reduce attrition and save costs?
High turnover in the technology sector is not just an HR metric—it is a signal to leadership to reimagine how talent is engaged and supported. When basic HR queries or access to services become frustrating, even the most talented employees can become disengaged and susceptible to attrition.
AI-powered employee service platforms like Zendesk address this by combining the strengths of AI agents and human agents on a unified platform. AI agents drive real-time, personalized self-service for employees—resolving common queries instantly and around the clock—while human agents can focus on the most complex or high-impact interactions.
This approach boosts satisfaction and efficiency, ensuring that support is responsive to individual needs without overburdening teams. Leaders also gain clear visibility into workforce sentiments and issues, enabling them to intervene before problems escalate.
The net result is a more vibrant, empowered workforce—one where individuals spend less time grappling with administrative hurdles and more time contributing meaningfully to organisational goals.
Our latest Employee Experience (EX) Trends report highlights that organisations harnessing AI in their EX platforms are seeing tangible gains in increased productivity, better decision-making, and improved work quality.
Such investments will help technology companies sustain high engagement, and mitigate the financial impact of attrition while retaining top talent.
How are the expectations of millennials and Gen Z around workplace support, compared to customer service, influencing how companies design their employee experience strategies?
Expectations for workplace support have been transformed by the rapid improvements in customer experience (CX) in our personal lives. When consumers get instant, personalised service from brands, it raises the bar for what employees expect from their own organisations—regardless of age.
The saying, “the last best experience becomes my next least acceptable experience,” is now just as relevant at work as it is at home.
This shift is especially pronounced for millennials and Gen Z, who are digital natives and naturally blur the line between exceptional CX and employee experience (EX). For them, seamless, on-demand support and intuitive digital tools are not perks—they are essential to how they define a great workplace.
The 2024 Deloitte Gen Z and Millennial Survey reflects how these generations are driving new standards for employers—prioritising purposeful work, openness to new technology, and environments that encourage learning and continuous improvement.
As a result, leading organisations recognise that investing in AI-powered, digital-first EX isn’t just about keeping up; it’s now fundamental to engaging, retaining, and empowering the next generation of talent.
How do AI-powered employee experience tools give companies a competitive edge in talent retention?
In an increasingly distributed and skills-driven market, the ability to attract and retain top talent defines competitive advantage for businesses. Managing performance, fostering cohesion, and keeping employees engaged have become more complex in today’s environment.
Our research found that 66% of HR and IT leaders find it difficult to assess the performance of remote teams, and more than a third struggle to maintain team cohesion in distributed work setups.
AI-powered employee service tools address these pressures by surfacing real-time insights into sentiment, productivity, and emerging concerns.
One of the key benefits of these platforms is the ability to combine around-the-clock self-service—where AI agents handle routine requests—with seamless escalation to human support for more complex or sensitive issues. These platforms also help to personalise support, streamline internal processes, and ensure communication remains strong across all corners of the organisation, regardless of where employees are based.
With 84% of leaders viewing EX as a key differentiator, companies that invest in AI-enabled employee service platforms are better positioned to create responsive, supportive environments that fosters a high-performing culture. In doing so, they not only strengthen retention but can also realise cost savings that come from lower turnover.
Lastly, how can AI-powered tools help HR analyse talent needs and strategize people-centric initiatives while still keeping the human touch?
AI-powered HR tools are reshaping how organisations across geographies understand their talent needs and advance people-first strategies. These platforms rapidly analyse workforce feedback, skills data, and workplace trends, giving HR leaders the ability to spot gaps and address emerging challenges with greater speed and effectiveness.
Quality assurance now benefits from AI as well, enabling HR and IT teams to monitor interactions at scale and surface coaching opportunities in real time. This helps identify development needs within teams and supports more agile, targeted upskilling. Yet, technology alone cannot replace empathy and contextual judgement. SHRM’s 2024 Talent Trends report notes that three-quarters of HR professionals believe AI will heighten the importance of human judgement in the workplace.
Striking the right balance, organisations are able to act on data-driven insights while ensuring employees continue to feel truly heard and valued.
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