Methodology

Why this page exists

A guide that reports what software does owes its reader an account of how it knows. This page is that account.

Where a page starts

A page starts from a question a team meets when it evaluates an AI agent for internal IT, and from the search queries that express the same question. The title, the headings and the FAQ follow those queries. The content does not: it follows what published sources carry. A page opens on the answer to its title question.

The evidence rule

A page states a fact when a public source carries it. When no source carries it, the page either works around the gap or says the gap exists.

Every source is listed at the foot of its page with its publisher. A source is listed only after its published page was opened and read directly, not taken from a summary or a copy. Unless a page says otherwise, its sources were read in October 2026. Product claims require public support. Recommendations and inferences are identified as such. A newer source supersedes an older one only when their product scope and version match.

Documentation describes what a vendor says its product does. The capabilities reported here were read, not tested: no tenant was run, no connector was installed, and no configuration was exercised.

How conflicting sources are reported

Three rules, applied in this order.

When two public pages from the same vendor contradict each other on the point a page is about, the page sets out what each one says and draws no conclusion. The reader can open both pages.

A vendor’s page about its own product beats a third party’s description of it. A competitor’s characterisation of another competitor is a market view, not a fact, and it is not published here.

A newer revision beats an older one only when product scope and version match. Specifications change. A page that cites a protocol names the revision it read.

How limits are chosen

Every page carries at least one limit, and it is not decoration. A limit qualifies when a reader would otherwise discover it during a trial: an unsupported deployment type, a connection that only reads, a synchronisation that runs on a schedule rather than on demand, a capability that stops at the boundary of one system.

Limits are attributed to the source that states them.

Dates

A date announced by a vendor is written attributed to that vendor, with the page that announces it as its source. That holds for a date still ahead, such as the end of a credential or of a server version, which the vendor may move. A date of consultation is never presented as a date of publication: when a page says when a post was published, it gives the date the post itself carries.

What is never claimed

A capability that could not be verified from published material. A number without a source. A date that no public page carries. A characterisation of one vendor drawn from another vendor’s sales material.

On comparisons

This site does not rank vendors. Pages compare mechanisms rather than products: what a connection exposes, what it does not, and what that costs the team running it.

The list at the end of each page

Each page ends with a section that lists the vendors whose public pages, read in October 2026, meet a criterion stated on the page, on the point the page is about. The lists cover a fixed set of vendors reviewed for this guide:

• the service desk platforms it covers: Freshservice (Freshworks), Jira Service Management (Atlassian), Zendesk;
• the AI service desk agent vendors: Console, Harmony, Ravenna, Risotto, Serval, Siit.

Each page applies its criterion to each of them. Inclusion is shown by a line and a source: each line is attributed to the vendor’s page that meets the criterion. The list is alphabetical; it is not a ranking. A vendor whose pages do not meet the criterion is not listed, and that says nothing about its product.

Glossary terms

A glossary term has no sources of its own. Its sources are those of the articles that use it, and a definition adds no fact that those articles do not carry.

Corrections

A reader or a vendor can ask for a statement to be corrected by pointing at published documentation, using the address in the legal notice. Each page shows the date it was last updated. The site does not publish a history of changes.