While Salesforce captured attention with its Agentforce Contact Center announcement at Enterprise Connect, Zendesk announced its 7th acquisition, Forethought.
Founded seven years ago, Forethought is a pure-play customer support automation company.
It adds a team of over 140, according to LinkedIn, a material expansion to Zendesk’s AI and engineering talent.
Zendesk anticipates a boost to its roadmap through Forethought’s voice automation capabilities, complex workflow automation, and expanded access to back-end systems, including those without APIs, via browser-based automation.
Strategically, Forethought brings a standalone customer support automation solution, enabling Zendesk to target companies currently using other providers’ support and ticketing platforms.
Zendesk has moved aggressively on AI, investing over $500 million across seven acquisitions in the last three years. It has also adopted the resolution-pricing model, which is transforming customer support.
After reaching $200 million in AI ARR last year, CEO Tom Eggemeier shared the growth targets for his company: $400 million in AI ARR by year-end and $1 billion by 2028.