The help desk automation sector represents a billion-dollar market, and it stands among the industries most susceptible to transformation by AI-driven technology. While established leaders such as Zendesk, ServiceNow, and Freshworks currently hold dominant positions, numerous smaller startups are wagering that reimagining workflows will allow them to gain a foothold. Risotto is one such startup, and it now has substantial resources to validate its approach. The company announced on Tuesday the closure of a $10 million seed funding round, led by Bonfire Ventures and with contributions from 645 Ventures, Y Combinator, Ritual Capital, and Surgepoint Capital.

Built to autonomously handle help desk tickets, Risotto operates as a layer between ticket management platforms like Jira and the intricate internal systems required for resolution. Although the product utilizes a third-party foundation model, CEO Aron Solberg emphasizes that the company's core value lies in the intermediary infrastructure that manages the model's output for customers, ensuring its non-deterministic nature remains controlled.

In a collaboration with payroll provider Gusto, Risotto successfully automated 60% of the company's support tickets. While its current focus is on traditional ticketing systems, Risotto is also preparing for a more profound industry shift as AI begins to fundamentally alter help desk operations. "For 95% of our customers, humans still resolve tickets the conventional way," Solberg noted. "However, we observe newer companies transitioning toward using an LLM as the primary interface between humans and technology."

Practically, this evolution would involve managing tasks through platforms like ChatGPT for Enterprise, which could orchestrate help-desk tickets alongside various other professional duties. Solberg shared that his team has already developed integrations with ChatGPT for Enterprise and Gemini, connecting Risotto via MCP. Should this model gain traction, it would catalyze significant changes across the industry. Risotto and comparable tools would then act as specialized services invoked by a central AI, delivering more targeted and dependable functionality than a general-purpose system could achieve independently.

This introduces a new paradigm for SaaS products—one where reliability and context management take precedence over user interfaces designed primarily for humans. For now, Risotto's most immediate value lies in bringing order to the chaos of disparate IT systems. According to Solberg, there remains considerable worth in simplifying the use of existing ticketing platforms. "One of our customers employs four full-time staff just to manage Jira," Solberg explained. "That’s before even considering AI implementation. It’s purely about handling the platform itself."