Jon Sigler of ServiceNow Discusses Customer Desire for Enhanced Productivity and Value in GenAI

Jon Sigler, Senior Vice President of Platform and AI at ServiceNow, emphasizes the growing demand for advanced applications of Generative AI (GenAI) among customers. They seek to extract more value from their GenAI deployments, aiming for increased productivity, enhanced personalization, and overall greater returns. In response, ServiceNow has launched the Xanadu release, a significant advancement in their GenAI strategy. This release aims to provide enterprises with a comprehensive platform experience that enables rapid adoption and effective utilization of GenAI capabilities, ultimately driving substantial business outcomes with minimal complexity.

ServiceNow’s new initiative includes the integration of Agentic AI into the ServiceNow platform, which is set to revolutionize productivity by providing round-the-clock support across various domains such as IT, customer service, procurement, HR, and software development. This forward-thinking approach represents a major leap in how AI agents are employed, moving from simple prompt-based interactions to offering profound contextual understanding. This change ensures that AI agents can perform with enhanced oversight and governance, making them more effective and reliable.

The Xanadu release also extends the capabilities of Now Assist to critical enterprise functions. For example, Now Assist for Security Operations (SecOps) enhances the speed of response to security threats by automating the summarization and prioritization of incidents. This allows SecOps teams to quickly address and contain security issues. Similarly, Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement Operations simplifies the procurement process, making it easier for employees to submit requests and access information through a conversational interface. This improvement boosts compliance and accuracy while reducing the friction associated with procurement.

ServiceNow’s focus on improving customer agility and productivity is further reflected in the introduction of the Now Assist Skill Kit. This feature empowers partners and customers to develop custom GenAI skills tailored to their specific business needs. It seamlessly integrates with data and knowledge within the Now Platform, offering enhanced contextual accuracy and customization options. Additionally, new features like data visualization generation, which helps teams quickly turn data into actionable insights, and LLM-based proactive prompts, which provide timely reminders and task prompts, contribute to better productivity and collaboration.

The expanded partnership with Microsoft, announced during Knowledge 2024, brings ServiceNow’s AI-powered workflows together with Microsoft’s Copilot for Microsoft 365. This integration is now generally available, offering new levels of productivity and connected experiences by combining the strengths of both platforms.

ServiceNow is also extending the reach of Now Assist into various industry sectors. For instance, Now Assist for Telecom, Media, and Technology (TMT), Financial Services Operations (FSO), and Public Sector Digital Services (PSDS) enable organizations in these sectors to handle issues and requests more efficiently, improving both customer and agent experiences. The introduction of Retail Operations and Retail Service Management further supports retailers by unifying their systems for managing in-store tasks and customer service requests, thus enhancing the overall retail experience.

Furthermore, the Xanadu release includes platform innovations designed to foster a connected and efficient work environment. The new integrated development environment (IDE) allows developers to quickly create and modify ServiceNow applications, promoting faster development and seamless collaboration. The Guided Self-Service feature in the Employee Center offers a user-friendly, interactive Q&A experience, enabling employees to quickly find accurate answers to common questions without needing to navigate complex systems or submit support tickets.

ServiceNow also announced powerful data enhancements with the introduction of RaptorDB Pro, which significantly improves performance by offering up to 53% faster transaction times, 27 times quicker report generation, and three times the transactional throughput. These enhancements are designed to support larger numbers of users and workflows, ensuring that ServiceNow instances can handle increased demands and deliver superior performance.