ServiceNow’s Xanadu release is a transformative leap forward in enterprise operations and service management. This innovative update further enhances the advanced Now Assist feature, powered by embedded generative AI (GenAI) capabilities, revolutionizing how businesses streamline operations and make critical decisions. In today’s fast-evolving digital landscape, Now Assist empowers organizations to optimize workflows and improve service delivery through state-of-the-art artificial intelligence.
In our recent webinar, Simon Hendery, a ServiceNow Community Rising Star and SecOps expert, shared key insights on using Now Assist’s generative AI (GenAI) features. His guidance focused on how organizations can harness these tools to improve workflows, boost customer experiences, and gain a competitive edge. This article distills five actionable strategies from the webinar, providing service managers, IT professionals, and business leaders with the knowledge to transform their operations.
ServiceNow’s Xanadu release: why is this a major update?
The Xanadu release represents a major leap forward for ServiceNow, especially in its integration of AI into service management processes. This release marks the largest update to ServiceNow’s AI capabilities, with a focus on enhancing automation, improving user interactions, and optimizing workflows across various departments. From IT service management (ITSM) to customer service management (CSM) and security operations (SecOps), Xanadu provides businesses with additional robust tools to handle complex tasks efficiently.
But what exactly makes Now Assist stand out?
The integration of Now Assist, powered by GenAI capabilities, is a game-changer. Now Assist does more than automate simple tasks:
- it enables delivery of better self-service,
- recommends actions,
- provides answers by embedding GenAI into the fabric of service management.
These capabilities reduce manual workloads, boost efficiency, and improve decision-making across the board.
What is Now Assist and how does GenAI fit in?
Now Assist is an advanced AI assistant built into the ServiceNow platform, designed to improve productivity and efficiency. It empowers users by providing contextual recommendations, answering queries, and guiding users toward solutions, all while enhancing self-service capabilities.
ServiceNow’s Now Assist incorporates GenAI capabilities—tasks that a generative AI model can perform based on its training and architecture. These capabilities enable the system to automatically generate summaries, responses, and even code, taking much of the manual effort out of routine processes.
In essence, Now Assist, with its embedded GenAI, enables businesses to streamline their workflows by automating repetitive tasks and generating powerful insights in real-time. By combining AI-powered automation with human decision-making, teams can focus on more strategic, value-added activities.
1. Improving Security Operations (SecOps) with AI-Generated Incident Summaries
One of the new features of ServiceNow’s Now Assist in Xanadu is its ability to generate incident summaries using its GenAI capabilities. In the webinar, Simon—a security operations specialist—demonstrated how AI-generated summaries could transform the workflow of security analysts. When faced with hundreds or even thousands of security alerts, manually sifting through data can be overwhelming.
With Now Assist’s GenAI-powered incident summaries, the process becomes far more efficient.
Instead of spending hours reviewing logs and reports, analysts can generate a concise summary with a single click. This feature was particularly highlighted in the context of a phishing incident, where the system summarized the phishing attempt, identified affected users, and outlined potential risks.
The key benefits of AI-generated summaries include significant time savings, reduced human error, and faster decision-making. By streamlining the information-gathering process, Now Assist helps improve overall security response times and cuts down on incident handling costs.
2. Streamlining customer service interactions with GenAI driven responses
In the realm of customer service, the GenAI capabilities embedded in Now Assist have proven to be invaluable. Imagine a customer service agent juggling multiple queries, each requiring a fast and precise response. Now Assist helps by analyzing the context of the queries and generating accurate, AI-driven responses, reducing the workload on human agents.
For example, during the webinar, Simon demonstrated how a customer service agent handling a live chat interaction could use Now Assist’s GenAI to quickly generate suggested responses. These AI-generated replies were accurate, professional, and could be further customized by the agent, ensuring a personal touch without sacrificing efficiency.
Customers benefit from faster service, while agents can handle more requests with higher accuracy. By automating repetitive responses, Now Assist allows service teams to focus on resolving complex issues, ultimately improving customer satisfaction and retention.
3. Using AI for risk management and SecOps automation
The GenAI capabilities embedded in Now Assist play a crucial role in Security Operations (SecOps), enabling businesses to manage risk more effectively. As highlighted during the webinar, handling security incidents often involves combing through vast amounts of data. This manual process can be both time-consuming and prone to errors.
With Now Assist, security teams can use GenAI to categorize and prioritize incidents, focusing their attention on the most critical threats. For instance, Simon showcased how Now Assist can automate threat classification, saving valuable time and ensuring more accurate incident resolution.
Additionally, the ability to generate detailed reports on security incidents enhances compliance efforts. By documenting actions taken during incident response, Now Assist ensures that organizations meet regulatory requirements and maintain a robust security posture.
4. Automating knowledge base article creation with GenAI
Maintaining a knowledge base (KB) can be one of the most resource-intensive tasks for service management teams. However, Now Assist’s GenAI-powered KB article generation simplifies this process dramatically. During the webinar, Simon demonstrated how service cases can be transformed into fully formed KB articles with just a few clicks.
As service requests come in, Now Assist captures the resolution process and automatically generates a knowledge article based on the steps taken. This ensures that valuable information is preserved and can be referenced by employees in the future.
Automating knowledge creation not only reduces the workload for service teams but also ensures that the knowledge base remains up-to-date and accurate. This, in turn, improves productivity across the organization, as employees can quickly find solutions to common issues without submitting redundant queries.
5. AI-powered code generation: reducing development time
In addition to streamlining service operations and creating knowledge base articles, Now Assist’s GenAI capabilities also extend to code generation. Businesses looking to develop custom applications or workflows can use Now Assist to drastically reduce development time.
As Simon mentioned during the webinar, Now Assist allows users to generate code quickly based on predefined inputs. This reduces the reliance on IT teams for basic development tasks, enabling faster iteration on applications and workflows.
While developers are still necessary for complex projects, Now Assist’s GenAI can handle the more routine coding tasks, allowing developers to focus on innovation and advanced problem-solving.
By reducing the time it takes to develop solutions, businesses can adapt more quickly to changing needs, leading to greater agility and faster innovation cycles.
Why businesses shouldn’t delay adopting AI-powered tools?
In today’s fast-paced business environment, delaying the adoption of AI-powered tools like Now Assist could leave businesses at a competitive disadvantage. As Simon highlighted in the webinar, the technology is already transforming how companies operate, and those that fail to integrate these tools risk falling behind.
Now Assist and its GenAI capabilities provide clear benefits:
- reduced operational costs
- faster response times, and
- improved decision-making.
Organizations that adopt these tools early will be better positioned to capitalize on future innovations and scale their operations efficiently.
Overcoming challenges in AI implementation
While the benefits of AI are substantial, implementing AI tools like Now Assist can come with challenges. One common concern is the learning curve associated with new technologies. However, as Simon emphasized, Now Assist is designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, minimizing the barrier to adoption.
Businesses should also ensure that AI tools are integrated seamlessly into existing workflows. Proper training is essential to empower employees to use AI effectively. Additionally, while the initial costs of implementing AI may seem high, the long-term savings in efficiency, productivity, and improved decision-making far outweigh the upfront investment.
Best practices for maximizing the value of Now Assist’s GenAI capabilities
To fully unlock the potential of Now Assist and its embedded GenAI, businesses must approach implementation strategically. Here are some best practices:
- Start small with a pilot program: Introduce AI tools in a specific department or workflow before scaling up, allowing teams to become familiar with the technology.
- Align AI with business goals: Ensure that AI solutions directly support your company’s objectives, whether improving customer service, boosting security, or streamlining operations.
- Invest in training: Equip employees with the skills to use AI tools effectively, ensuring they understand how to apply AI to their roles.
- Monitor performance: Regularly assess the impact of AI on your workflows and make adjustments to continue driving value.
ServiceNow’s Now Assist with GenAI capabilities is revolutionizing how businesses approach service management, security operations, and customer interactions. By automating routine tasks and generating intelligent insights, these AI-driven tools enable teams to work more efficiently and focus on strategic priorities.
The future of service management is AI-driven, and businesses that embrace this technology today will be better equipped to navigate tomorrow’s challenges. By following best practices and aligning AI implementation with business goals, companies can unlock the full potential of Now Assist and GenAI to transform their operations.
FAQs
Now Assist is an AI-powered assistant in ServiceNow that helps automate tasks, provide answers, recommend actions, and improve self-service. It integrates GenAI capabilities for tasks like summarization and code generation.
GenAI automates the analysis of security incidents, generates detailed summaries, and produces reports, enabling faster and more accurate responses to security threats.
While GenAI can handle routine code generation, it doesn’t replace developers entirely. Developers are still needed for complex projects, but Now Assist speeds up the development process for simpler tasks.
AI-generated articles streamline knowledge management, ensuring that solutions are documented accurately and efficiently. This helps employees resolve issues faster and improves organizational learning.
Delaying AI adoption can lead to businesses falling behind competitors who are already using these tools to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and boost customer experiences.
