ServiceNow has unveiled the Vancouver release of its platform. This release’s major focus is expanding the Now Assist solution suite. Earlier this year, ServiceNow announced Now Assist for Virtual Agent. A generative AI solution that delivered a self-service agent on the Now platform. This latest release delivers specific Now Assist solutions for IT Service Management (ITSM), Customer Service Management (CSM), and HR Service Delivery (HRSD). It has also embedded generative AI capabilities in Creator, enabling customers to build their workflows using natural language.
As part of this release, ServiceNow also unveiled Now LLM. The ServiceNow Large Language Model, built for enterprises and ensures enterprise data privacy.
CJ Desai, President and Chief Operating Officer of ServiceNow, said, “Organizations are seeking a trusted partner to help them navigate this dynamic and fast-moving era of intelligence. ServiceNow has thousands of customers already using the Now Platform to digitize and streamline processes across the enterprise. With our Vancouver release, we’re combining the power of the Now Platform with new generative AI features to bring AI-driven intelligence to every corner of the business, creating a catalyst for productivity and better enterprise experiences.”
The Vancouver release embeds generative AI across the Now platform, enabling enterprises to take advantage of the technology across the platform and for many use cases. There is more to the Vancouver release than just generative AI innovations.
More than just generative AI
The company highlighted three other features that are a part of the Vancouver release. They include improvements to security, governance, healthcare and finance processes.
The new features include:
- ServiceNow Zero Trust Access, part of ServiceNow Vault, helps customers build a zero trust framework for the Now Platform with granular authentication policies
- Clinical Device Management (CDM) administrates the installation, service, and management of medical devices such as MRI and X-ray machines to maximise their utilisation and life
- Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) Management enables organisations to track components of open source software and better track software components in use across the enterprise and minimise risk
- Employee Growth and Development (EGD) uses AI to collect, validate, and continuously update employee skills data. It delivers greater visibility and insight into workforce capabilities, enabling leaders to make better talent decisions
Deniz Demirel, talent transformation strategic partnerships leader at IBM Consulting, commented, “Pairing IBM’s Skills expertise with ServiceNow Employee Growth and Development, we will revolutionise talent management. By consolidating the digital experience platform with learning, development, and skills intelligence, our customers can gain data-driven insights to proactively identify and develop critical skills, effectively closing talent gaps and simplifying the overall employee experience.”
- Accounts Payable Operations (APO) is now generally available with the Vancouver release. The solution automates the accounts payable process, allowing teams to digitise the invoice receipt, reconciliation and payment process.
Vancouver also sees the expansion of Third-Party Risk Management. With improvements around the visualisation and management of security threats from outside organisations.
Desai also said, “ServiceNow’s advantage is empowering enterprises to innovate for growth on a single strategic platform that delivers fast results and great experiences. As we integrate generative AI across our workflows, we’re simultaneously expanding our platform capabilities with the Vancouver release to give our customers exactly what they need in this moment—new solutions that help protect their business, lower operating costs, and scale automation for end-to-end digital transformation.”
Now Assist Extended
ServiceNow has added three specific generative AI solutions across its application portfolio. The generative AI features are leveraged across use cases such as case, incident, and agent chat summarization, virtual agent, and search. It will enable employees and agents to use generative AI to make them more productive and effective in their day-to-day roles.
Now Assist for ITSM
IT Leaders are looking for ways to improve agents’ productivity and deliver a better service to employees within their organisations. With Now Assist for ITSM ServiceNow believes it can deliver this. Agents can use Now Assist to quickly deliver answers to questions rather than spending time searching for the answers.
Once an incident is complete, Now Assist can summarise the incident and resolution notes. Where complex issues occur, this is a critical time-saving. It also enables IT teams to review resolutions and implement better practices across teams to resolve future incidents faster.
Now Assist for CSM
As customers call in with issues, customer service agents no longer need to search based on criteria and read through manuals to find the correct resolution to a problem. Now Assist for CSM can improve productivity, reduce costs, and improve customer experience by delivering answers to enquiries and issues faster. The generative AI can also help update tickets where appropriate, reducing the amount of manual work.
Now Assist for HRSD
HR Teams are often inundated with questions related to documented practices and manuals. Now Assist for HRSD can ingest information and deliver instant summaries and advice around the many topics that keep HR teams busy. From payroll discrepancies to HR Paperwork.
Now Assist can also help by summarizing chat and virtual agent interactions for analysis and review. Then identify whether there are wider issues. The responses can help HR teams better understand every related fact about an employee requesting information.
The fourth new component is Now Assist for Creator. This brings generative AI into the hands of developers working on the Now platform. The capabilities include a feature that enables developers to use natural languages to create high-quality code to meet the requirements. The feature should significantly increase productivity for organisations developing solutions on the Now platform, both partners and customers.
Availability and Pricing
From September 29th, the new Now Assist solutions will be available in the ServiceNow Store. They are visible now. Pricing (not available as of writing) for the new generative AI solutions will be based on factors including value, flexibility, and simplicity.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean?
ServiceNow has gone all in with generative AI. Now already provides general access to Microsoft Azure OpenAI, Service LLM and OpenAI API. It has now built domain-specific LLMs onto the Now platform and is leveraging its partnership, announced in May with NVIDIA. The ServiceNow LLMs are based on the NVIDIA NeMo framework and served using NVIDIA Triton Inference Server software.
This means that ServiceNow can offer customers the best of both worlds, both third-party LLMs and secure and private LLMs. Using just corporate data to preserve data privacy and ensure compliance moving forward.
ServiceNow continues to evolve the Now platform. This latest release demonstrates how firms should embed generative AI across their platforms to maximise its value.
