Once thought of as a “seller’s tool”, Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) solutions have shifted in recent years to be a far more robust, interactive and dynamic experiential platform. Once the domain of high-touch consumer commerce motions, and thanks to mainstay players heavily investing in the value of customer experience and sleek interfaces, CPQ has elevated the configuration experience to everything from software to services, without sacrificing the pinpoint accuracy of pricing, discounting and quoting that sellers depend on.
So, it shouldn’t be a shock that on their quest to shake up what cross-enterprise customer relationship management IS, ServiceNow has picked up the AI-forward sales and commerce CPQ darling, Logik.ai. The real question will be how quickly ServiceNow customers reimagine how they can empower selling and commerce no matter where sellers or buyers exist outside of a traditional CRM or Sales environment...and how far CPQ could reach to impact revenue in critical touchpoints like field service, service desk or contact center.
What We Know About the Deal: Not much has been revealed about the financial details of the deal. What we know is thatServiceNow has signed definitive agreement to purchase the company founded in 2021 that in January announced a year-over-year revenue growth cycle tripling in size with a customer roster of many Fortune 1000 enterprises. We also know that Logik.ai had successfully raised a $16 million in Series A (2023) and $25 million in Series B (2024) funding. Coming out the gate as Logik.io, the AI powered CPQ had been backed by the likes of Emergence Capital, Salesforce Ventures, and ServiceNow ventures…which once again has this analyst wondering just how many AI solutions ServiceNow plans on sneaking out from Salesforce. What we do know is that this won’t be the first acquisition rodeo for Logik.ai’s leadership team who hail from a very familiar name in CPQ. The deal is expected to close in mid-2025, pending regulatory approvals and closing conditions. Check out the official release, and the CR Insights on the announcement that includes thougths from my colleague covering Revenue and Growth technologies, Martin Schneider.
What Makes Logik.ai so Interesting: From the User Interface to the AI recommendations that flow across the entire experience, there is little doubt Logik.ai represents an evolution in the CPQ market. And that also should not be a surprise as the leadership team are true veterans of the space. Their deep roots into commerce-driven customer-centric experience has tell-tale heritage reminiscent of the literal OG of CPQ’s, BigMachine, acquired by Oracle and to this day one of the blueprints for experiential interfaces. For BigMachine, the experience was largely differentiated by a keen understanding that these moments of configuration were also opportunities to capture high fidelity signal from the customer. That is exactly where Logik.ai started and hasn't stopped innovating, injected a massive dose of AI and automation without leaving that heritage of experience design. For this analyst, Logik.ai had me at conversational quoting and a highly configurable rules engine, but then again, who doesn’t love saving time and focusing on the efficiency of the revenue process. But where Logik.ai gets really interesting is in its ecosystem and how that has lifted CPQ out from that traditional path of order management. With partnerships with Shopify, Adobe and BigCommerce, Logik,ai hits the ground running across multiple facets of the ServiceNow portfolio. And no…I haven’t even TOUCHED on their recently announced subscription management offerings that offer much needed relief to fast-moving commerce. So bottom line, there is a lot to like here…and a lot that can spread across the ServiceNow ecosystem.
For CX and Strategy Leaders: Yes, ServiceNow is expanding its reach and has emerged as a significant CRM player ideally suited for organizations with complex selling or commerce motions. This addition begins to round out a motion that is omnichannel on purpose, data-driven by design and intentionally leveraging the “platform of platforms” approach to AI and meaningful conversational moments that can and should beget even more meaningful moments. However, this should not be considered a single function tool or an upgrade to a selling system. That would be far too limiting and overlooks the opportunity to finally answer that age old question of how to be empower sellers in non-traditional commerce and revenue roles. In the past we’ve relied on sales and order management self service motions to empower field service to upsell or cross sell. Likewise, we’ve inserted self-service commerce modules into contact center or service desk flows that have often not connected to the customer’s actual real-time journey. What has resulted are sometimes clunky experiences where self-service is most often self-serving routing customers back to sellers and off of their prefered channel or experience of choice.
As CPQ continues to become increasingly experiential, expect to see the field deploying these commerce opportunities to not just move the revenue needle, but to also collect signal and data from customers that has proven vital to future engagement and future opportunity. For CX strategists, ask now about where and how AI tools like Logik.ai are integrated into personalization journeys. How does the signal provided directly from the customer being integrated into CRM to not just track transaction but to inform next best engagement opportunity. Does Service have access to the configuration AND the quote…or are we leaving that front line resource blind to the customer’s original intentions?
But also don’t ignore the AI and workflows that Logik.ai brings to the table…because rest assured ServiceNow has not. These aren’t just random acts of automation, but should be seen as the next evolution of what a platform of platforms is meant to curate, orchestrate and expose when putting AI to work.
Parting Thoughts: There will always be order management and quoting tools that rightly focus in on the effectiveness and efficiency of the seller’s role. These tools will set out to manaage the complexity of the selling process with an organziation. Tools that also manage and orchestrate discounts and the quote-to-cash model remain critical mainstays of the stack, and will continue to manage the complexity of financial processes. But what is important to consider here is where and how AI driven interactive CPQ tools can manage the complexity of a customer's needs and expectations. This is ServiceNow resetting the mold of how experience works and falls, to be honest, it totally in line with how Constellation Research has long asserted Customer Experience stratgegy SHOULD be viewed: as an enterprise-wide team sport that delivers durable, profitable experiences connecting buyers to brands. In this case, that strategy is decidedly interactive, driven by conversation, rich with data and silly with intentional acts of automation that hasn’t forgotten that even the most complex sales and commerce cycles shouldn’t be painful. This is about allowing CPQ to be an outside in experience tool where everybody wins.
