ServiceNow to Unlock 24/7 Productivity at Massive Scale With AI Agents for IT, Customer Service, Procurement, HR, Software Development, and More

Rhea-AI Summary

ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) announced plans to integrate Agentic AI into its platform, aiming to unlock 24/7 productivity across various business functions. The company's AI Agents will use advanced reasoning and cross-enterprise data to evolve from prompt-based activity to deep contextual comprehension.

Key points:

• First use cases, Customer Service Management AI Agents and IT Service Management AI Agents, expected to launch in November 2024
• New Now Assist Skill Kit enables custom GenAI skills development on the ServiceNow platform
• AI Agents aim to reduce mean-time-to-resolution and enhance live agent productivity
• ServiceNow envisions future collaboration between humans and AI teams for proactive task management

Positive

• Introduction of Agentic AI to enhance productivity across multiple business functions
• Launch of Now Assist Skill Kit for custom GenAI skills development
• Expected reduction in mean-time-to-resolution with AI Agents
• Potential for AI agents to reinvent workflows across the enterprise
• Integration of robust oversight and governance in AI systems

Negative

• First use cases for AI Agents not available until November 2024
• initial scope of AI Agents (only Customer Service and IT Service Management)

Insights

AI and Technology Analyst

ServiceNow's introduction of AI Agents marks a significant leap in enterprise automation. By integrating Agentic AI into their platform, they're aiming to revolutionize workflow management across various sectors. This move could potentially reduce operational costs and increase efficiency for businesses adopting these solutions.

The key innovation here is the evolution from prompt-based AI to contextual comprehension. This advancement allows AI agents to handle complex tasks autonomously while maintaining human oversight. The introduction of the Now Assist Skill Kit further empowers businesses to create custom AI solutions, potentially leading to a new ecosystem of AI-driven enterprise tools.

However, the success of this initiative will largely depend on the real-world performance of these AI agents and the willingness of businesses to integrate them into their existing workflows. The projected 24/7 productivity could be a game-changer, but it also raises questions about job displacement and the need for new skills in the workforce.

Financial Analyst

ServiceNow's strategic move into Agentic AI could significantly impact its market position and financial performance. The company is positioning itself at the forefront of the AI revolution in enterprise software, which could drive substantial revenue growth in the coming years.

The introduction of AI Agents across multiple use cases (IT, customer service, HR, etc.) expands ServiceNow's addressable market. This could lead to increased customer acquisition and higher average revenue per user (ARPU) as clients adopt more AI-powered solutions.

However, investors should note that the full rollout of these AI capabilities is planned over an extended period (2024-2025). This gradual approach may result in a slower impact on financial results in the short term. Additionally, significant R&D investments may be required to maintain a competitive edge in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, potentially impacting profit margins in the near future.

Market Research Analyst

ServiceNow's AI Agents initiative aligns with the growing trend of AI adoption in enterprise software. Gartner's prediction that one-third of GenAI service interactions will involve autonomous agents by 2028 underscores the potential market size for these solutions.

The company's focus on customization and flexibility, evidenced by the Now Assist Skill Kit, could be a key differentiator in a crowded market. This approach allows businesses to tailor AI solutions to their specific needs, potentially increasing adoption rates and customer satisfaction.

However, ServiceNow faces stiff competition from other tech giants investing heavily in AI. The success of this initiative will depend on factors such as ease of implementation, tangible productivity gains and the company's ability to address concerns around data privacy and job displacement. Market education and clear demonstration of ROI will be important for widespread adoption of these AI agents across various industries.

Visionary approach redefines how AI agents collaborate with employees and customers

Using advanced reasoning and grounded in cross-enterprise data through the Now Platform, ServiceNow AI Agents evolve from prompt-based activity to deep contextual comprehension, keeping people in the loop for robust oversight and governance

First use cases, Customer Service Management AI Agents and IT Service Management AI Agents, are expected to reduce mean-time-to-resolution and make live agents more productive

New Now Assist Skill Kit enables organizations to build, test, and deploy custom GenAI skills on the ServiceNow platform

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW), the AI platform for business transformation, today announced its plans to integrate Agentic AI into the ServiceNow platform and unlock 24/7 productivity at massive scale across use cases including IT, customer service, procurement, HR, software development, and more. The forward-thinking approach puts AI to work for people by redefining how AI agents collaborate with employees and customers. Using advanced reasoning and grounded in cross-enterprise data through the Now Platform, ServiceNow AI Agents evolve from the more familiar prompt-based activity to deep contextual comprehension, keeping people in the loop for robust oversight and governance. Available this November, the first use cases for Customer Service Management (CSM) AI Agents and IT Service Management (ITSM) AI Agents are expected to reduce mean-time-to-resolution and make live agents more productive.

(Graphic: Business Wire)

Gartner^® predicts that “by 2028 one third of interactions with GenAI services will invoke action models and autonomous agents for task completion.”¹ With unified, real-time access to enterprise-wide knowledge, tools, workflows, and data on the Now Platform—and the ability to comprehend and interpret context to offer personalized responses and execute action plans—ServiceNow AI Agents will ultimately have the potential to reinvent workflows across the enterprise, from small and specialized tasks like single issue resolution, to running an entire incident response workflow. Guardrails for robust oversight will be built in to help ensure organizations can add the levels of governance they need for their unique business processes.

"ServiceNow is leading the way with its AI platform for business transformation, accelerating employee productivity and enterprise value,” said Jon Sigler, senior vice president of Platform and AI at ServiceNow. “Today, we’re taking a massive leap forward in unveiling our Agentic AI strategy. ServiceNow AI Agents will work autonomously in the background, handling tasks, managing processes, and collaborating with employees rather than just serving them. Because these capabilities will be built into the ServiceNow platform, customers can easily apply AI agents and skills that align with their unique needs.”

ServiceNow also announced the new Now Assist Skill Kit to enhance existing Now Assist AI capabilities. Skill Kit enables organizations to build, test, and deploy custom GenAI skills that fit the needs of their business on the ServiceNow platform, at scale. The announcement complements hundreds of new capabilities unveiled today in ServiceNow’s largest AI release to-date, the Now Platform Xanadu release, which is designed to boost productivity and strengthen collaboration across the enterprise.

Developing custom Now Assist skills and underlying prompts to tailor use cases natively within the Now Platform

With Now Assist Skill Kit, generally available today, organizations can create custom GenAI skills for their specific business needs, as well as when they have a use case that isn’t yet available out-of-the-box with Now Assist AI. Skill Kit allows customers to build, test, and deploy new GenAI skills and their underlying prompts, select models, and assign these skills to applications. Skill Kit connects seamlessly to data and knowledge within the Now Platform for enhanced context and accuracy, and offers powerful options for customization, whether customers choose Now LLMs or want to incorporate third-party or custom LLMs.

Additionally, organizations can assign their custom GenAI skills to AI agents, providing more capacity to help with manual tasks. Custom-built AI agents will be able to learn alongside customers’ businesses, working together with employees to manage workflows end-to-end.

Scaling AI agents on the Now Platform

“Over the past few months, AI agents and agentic workflows' discussions have taken the technology world by storm. Instead of using AI to optimize an isolated business process, AI agents could orchestrate the end-to-end value chain," said Ritu Jyoti, general manager and group vice president, AI and Data Management Market Research and Advisory Services at IDC.

As more powerful models increase AI agents’ ability to reason and act, ServiceNow is putting AI to work to entirely reinvent customer experiences. While resolving issues requires a significant amount of employee attention today, AI agents will have the skills to identify and resolve problems independently, guided by human oversight and aligning with a company’s specific parameters in concert with robust governance and analytics within the Now Platform.

The first ServiceNow AI Agent use cases—Customer Service Management AI Agents and IT Service Management AI Agents—are primed to deliver a boost in live agent productivity with AI agents solving many types of employee and customer issues by comprehending context, intuitively creating a step-by-step process for resolution, and executing on the plan, with approvals where needed from live agents.

In the future, using ServiceNow's multimodal AI, AI agents will be able to pull context from inputs like voice, video, and images and provide personalized, relevant responses, ultimately driving around-the-clock productivity at scale with hundreds of use cases across IT, customer service, procurement, HR, software development, and more. Further differentiation includes the potential for agent-to-agent collaboration, in which ServiceNow AI Agents can work across workflows, collaborating on multi-departmental issues through the Now Platform’s single architecture.

Redefining collaboration between people and AI on the AI Platform for business transformation

ServiceNow envisions a future in GenAI where people act as skilled administrators of an entire team of ServiceNow AI Agents that proactively manage multiple concurrent tasks and end-to-end workflows, supported by an agent-AI interaction layer built into the Now Platform.

This approach, along with the hundreds of innovations introduced with the Xanadu release, signify ServiceNow’s commitment to helping businesses drive more value with AI. With a single data platform that seamlessly integrates people, processes, data, and devices, customers can act with greater speed and scale. Domain specific AI models on the Now Platform are purpose-built for any use case, expanding the possibilities of GenAI across every piece of the business in every industry.

The Now Platform, including new data enhancements such as RaptorDB Pro announced today alongside the Xanadu release, provides the ultra-scale and performance needed for organizations across all industries to manage complex data in one system of action, revolutionizing their operations.

With the combination of ServiceNow’s new Xanadu GenAI innovations, data platform enhancements, and ServiceNow AI Agents, ServiceNow will help customers take AI-powered workflows even further across the enterprise, with massive scalability, connectivity, and personalization for agents, administrators, developers, and customers on the Now Platform.

Availability

• Now Assist Skill Kit is available today in the ServiceNow Store.
• Customer Service Management AI Agents and IT Service Management AI Agents are expected to be available to customers in November 2024 in limited release, with additional use cases added through 2025.

Additional Information

• Read about additional news from ServiceNow today:
  • ServiceNow bolstered its Now Assist GenAI portfolio and added new AI innovations to enhance productivity and employee collaboration.
  • ServiceNow unveiled new data enhancement capabilities to unlock value with ultra-scale and performance.
  • ServiceNow expanded its industry footprint with purpose-built AI solutions for telecommunications, media, and technology; financial services; public sector; and retail industries.
  • ServiceNow released additional capabilities designed to boost collaboration and efficiency for developers, IT teams, and employees.

About ServiceNow

ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) is putting AI to work for people. We move with the pace of innovation to help customers transform organizations across every industry while upholding a trustworthy, human centered approach to deploying our products and services at scale. Our AI platform for business transformation connects people, processes, data, and devices to increase productivity and maximize business outcomes. For more information, visit: www.servicenow.com.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward looking statements” about the expectations, beliefs, plans, and intentions relating to its innovations announced with the Now Platform Xanadu release. Such statements include statements regarding future product capabilities and offerings and expected benefits to ServiceNow. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or implied by the forward-looking statements. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, ServiceNow’s results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements made. ServiceNow undertakes no obligation, and does not intend, to update the forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements include: (i) delays and unexpected difficulties and expenses in executing the product capabilities and offerings, (ii) changes in the regulatory landscape related to AI and (iii) uncertainty as to whether sales will justify the investments in the product capabilities and offerings. Further information on factors that could affect ServiceNow’s financial and other results is included in the filings ServiceNow makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time.

© 2024 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

¹ Gartner, Predicts 2024: The Future of Generative AI Technologies, Arun Chandrasekaran, Anthony Mullen, et al., 28 February 2024
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240910238517/en/

Media Contact

Jacqueline Velasco

408-561-1937

press@servicenow.com

Source: ServiceNow, Inc.

FAQ

When will ServiceNow (NOW) release its first AI Agents for customer service and IT management?

ServiceNow plans to release Customer Service Management AI Agents and IT Service Management AI Agents in November 2024 in release.

What is the Now Assist Skill Kit announced by ServiceNow (NOW)?

The Now Assist Skill Kit is a tool that enables organizations to build, test, and deploy custom GenAI skills on the ServiceNow platform, tailored to their specific business needs.

How will ServiceNow's AI Agents impact mean-time-to-resolution for customer issues?

ServiceNow expects its AI Agents to reduce mean-time-to-resolution and make live agents more productive by autonomously handling tasks and managing processes.

What is the main goal of ServiceNow's (NOW) Agentic AI integration?

The main goal is to unlock 24/7 productivity at massive scale across various business functions, including IT, customer service, procurement, HR, and software development.