What it is (plain English)
ServiceNow's generative-AI layer woven across the platform: summarizing long incidents and cases, drafting replies and knowledge articles, answering in natural language, and assisting developers. It's a family of product-specific applications and skills but an accelerant applied on top of the workflows you already run.
Problems it solves
- Agents spending time reading long case/incident histories.
- Slow, inconsistent drafting of responses and knowledge.
- Users needing conversational, natural answers rather than keyword search.
- Developers writing boilerplate by hand.
What must exist first
Platform Core Setup and the specific product it assists (Now Assist is licensed and enabled per product - ITSM, CSM, HRSD, etc.), so that underlying module must be live.
What the customer needs to provide
- Which use cases matter (summarization, reply drafting, code assist, etc.).
- Data-governance decisions on what AI may access and generate.
- Quality/oversight expectations and a review approach.
- Adoption plan - the value is realized only if agents use it.
AI agent security boundary
Treat invocation access and runtime authority as separate controls. An invocation ACL determines who can start the agent or agentic workflow; the run-as identity, data ACLs, and tool permissions determine what it can access and do afterward. Prefer bounded inputs and declared outputs, supervise sensitive tools, and keep final business-record writes behind an authorized deterministic action.
Where it can go next
Enhances Incident Management, CSM Case Management, HR Service Delivery (HRSD), Virtual Agent, and App Engine; expands as new Now Assist skills ship each release.