Desku AI Chatbot Builder vs IBM watsonx Assistant
Desku AI Chatbot Builder
desku.io
IBM watsonx Assistant
cloud.ibm.comSide by side
| Figure | Desku AI Chatbot Builder | IBM watsonx Assistant |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $39/mo | $140/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 8 | 4 |
| Spec score · Chatbot Builders | 9.1 (#10) | 9.3 (#2) |
| AI bot generation | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment channels | multichannel | multichannel |
| Founded | A company-data listing reports Desku.io was founded in 2022; LinkedIn's profile opened here does not display a founding year. | 1911 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Headquarters | Wilmington, Delaware, United States | Armonk, New York, United States |
| Human handoff | The chatbot can escalate conversations to human agents and transfer them to live chat. | Yes |
| Integrations | Desku lists Shopify, WooCommerce, Ecwid, Magento, Shopline, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, Zapier, Slack and email via IMAP/SMTP among its integrations. | Available integrations include web chat, phone, Facebook Messenger, Genesys Bot Connector, Microsoft Teams, Slack, SMS, WhatsApp with Twilio, and Search. |
| Knowledge-base answers | Yes | Yes |
| Security | Desku says its controls include encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access, monitoring, logging and intrusion detection. | The service supports TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3, with TLS 1.3 as the default. |
| Support | GetApp lists email/help desk, knowledge base, phone, chat and 24/7 live representative support for Desku. | Lite and Trial accounts receive Basic support with self-service resources but no technical product support. |
| Visual flow builder | Yes | Yes |
Plans
Desku AI Chatbot Builder
- FreeFree
- Growth$39 a month
- Advance$79 a month
- Business$179 a month
- FreeFree
- Growth$39 a month
- Advance$79 a month
- Business$179 a month
IBM watsonx Assistant
- LiteFree
- TrialFree
- Plus$140 a month
- Enterprise with data isolationPriced on request
In their own words
Desku AI Chatbot Builder
Desku AI Chatbot Builder combines chatbot creation with a multichannel inbox for customer conversations. A visual flow builder and AI bot generation support bot setup, while knowledge-base answers help automate responses. Conversations can be handed off to a human. Its unified social inbox includes comment management, reply automation, and team assignment.
The service runs on the web, iOS, and Android, and a mobile app is available. Pricing is freemium. The Free plan costs nothing, billed monthly, and includes 2 agents and 1 inbox. Growth costs $39 a month, billed monthly, for 6 agents. Advance costs $79 a month for 12 agents, and Business costs $179 a month for 25 agents. A 14-day trial is listed. The maker is based in Wilmington, Delaware, United States.
IBM watsonx Assistant
IBM watsonx Assistant builds branded chatbots for live conversations across devices, applications, and channels. It uses natural-language understanding and machine-learning models customized from customer data to answer in real time. Actions organize customer tasks into steps within a conversation, while a Watson Discovery integration can search corporate data collections for answers. Integrations include web chat, phone, Facebook Messenger, Genesys Bot Connector, Microsoft Teams, Slack, SMS, WhatsApp with Twilio, and Search. Web chat can pass conversations to live-agent integrations including Genesys Web Messenger, NICE CXone, Salesforce, and Zendesk. The assistant is available as a managed IBM Cloud service or on premises with IBM Cloud Pak for Data. Lite is free, and the free Trial lasts 30 days. Plus costs $140 a month for the first 1,000 monthly users; additional users cost $14 per 100 active users per month, and phone voice adds $9 per 100 users per month. The v2 API requires Plus or higher. IBM is upgrading eligible instances to watsonx Orchestrate; existing resources remain operational.