Freshworks adds AI tools to streamline customer service

Freshworks has introduced three artificial intelligence features for its Freshdesk customer service platform, targeting fragmented service operations and rising demand for faster, more personal support.

The US-based software company announced Freshdesk Command Centre, Vertical AI Agents and Freddy AI Insights as additions to its core customer experience suite. The products focus on consolidating communication channels, automating routine work and giving managers clearer views of service performance.

The launch comes as customer service teams face a mix of higher contact volumes, more digital channels and pressure to keep staffing costs under control. Freshworks cited internal research that links agent frustration to rigid workflows and the need to switch between multiple tools during a single customer interaction.

Freshworks' Cost of Complexity Report found that 42% of customer service agents surveyed reported "uncustomizable workflows" as a common software issue. Another 36% cited "too many tools to toggle between". Respondents said that fewer productivity issues would free them for work they consider more meaningful, and reduce repetitive tasks.

"CX leaders want to scale instant, empathetic service without sacrificing quality or time. Yet fragmented systems, outdated tools and redundant processes waste hours of their teams' time," said Srini Raghavan, Chief Product Officer, Freshworks. "Freshworks is breaking that cycle of complexity by uniting how teams work and helping them reclaim hours of lost productivity, enabling teams to meet customer needs with greater speed, and giving leaders an easy way to uncover growth drivers and detractors proactively."

Unified workspace

Freshdesk Command Centre acts as a central workspace that brings together email, chat, WhatsApp and social media conversations. It sits on top of Freshdesk's existing ticketing and automation tools. Freshworks positions it as a way for agents to avoid moving between separate applications or browser tabs during a single support interaction.

The system applies AI models to detect customer sentiment in each conversation and display service-level agreement deadlines. Managers can see real-time information about open issues and response performance. Agents can view data such as purchase history, subscriptions, shipping updates from FedEx, payment details from Stripe and product information from Shopify within the conversation screen.

Freddy AI Copilot, the company's AI assistant, operates inside the Command Centre. It summarises long email threads, suggests responses and offers recommended actions for agents. The product supports single-click actions that can trigger workflows such as refund approvals, replacement orders and activity logging.

Analytics and alerts

Freddy AI Insights focuses on reporting and diagnostics for customer service leaders. The tool monitors trends and anomalies across support operations in real time and issues alerts on events such as spikes in incoming queries, SLA breaches or backlogs within specific teams.

The product includes built-in root cause analysis, with visual breakdowns that link performance shifts to likely drivers. It identifies operational patterns and quantifies which teams are affected. Freshworks describes it as an always-on analytics companion that converts logged data and AI outputs into forward-looking signals.

Industry-specific agents

The third element of the launch targets companies that want AI agents tailored to their sector. Vertical AI Agents are available via Freddy AI Agent Studio, Freshworks' environment for building, testing, and monitoring AI agents.

The vertical agents ship with more than 50 prebuilt workflows for eCommerce, fintech, travel and logistics. Customers can deploy these instead of designing conversation flows from scratch. The agents integrate with systems such as FedEx, Shopify, and Stripe.

Ecommerce agents can answer product questions, check stock, place and track orders and manage returns or exchanges. Fintech agents can handle balance and statement enquiries, review credit scores, share billing information, process payments and manage updates or cancellations. Logistics agents can track shipments, schedule collections, validate documents, automate claims and manage reverse logistics. Travel agents can support bookings, reservation changes, loyalty schemes, travel updates, and feedback capture.

Freshworks said early-access customers using its agentic workflows have seen an average deflection rate of 65% of service issues to AI agents. Some customers report that AI agents now resolve up to 80% of queries, reducing human-agent workloads and shortening handling times for standard questions.

Customer adoption

Gail's Bakery, which operates more than 100 bakery and café locations in the UK, uses Freddy AI Agent to manage a higher enquiry volume with a small service team.

"Freddy AI Agent now handles around a thousand inquiries for us every month, which is game-changing for a two-person team and gives us breathing room to focus where it really matters," said Julia Ramil, Customer Experience Manager, Gail's Bakery. "We value real connection, and this approach means the agentic workflow handles the everyday questions, ensuring our staff can prioritize the nuanced interactions that elevate the customer experience."

Upayments, a digital payments company in the Middle East, has implemented agentic workflows across its support operations.

"Freddy AI Agent automatically routes every query to the right team, cutting a full manual step and saving us real time every day," said Abdulrahman Al-Thekair, Customer Experience Director at Upayments. "Every week, we discover new ways to leverage agentic workflows. It's not just an automation feature anymore - it's become an essential part of how we scale support."

Digital mailbox provider iPostal1, which runs 1.3 million mailboxes across more than 4,000 locations, also reports efficiency gains. The company uses Freddy AI Agent workflows to automate support tasks and now completes certain steps in as little as seven seconds. That represents a reduction of up to 12 minutes per interaction for some processes.

Industry analysts say many organisations are interested in AI for automation but struggle with implementation timelines.

"Every customer service leader wants to leverage AI to automate interactions, and expectations are at an all-time high," said Michelle Morgan, Research Manager at IDC. "The challenge is that organisations spend much time designing and deploying AI agents. They need faster, easier ways to launch agents that not only answer questions but take action-helping teams save time and focus on high-impact work."