ServiceNow launched the Xanadu version of its Now Platform, which includes AI Agents that can autonomously perform tasks without human intervention, RaptorDB Pro, a new back-end database that improves performance, industry-specific features, and a new integrated development environment (IDE).
Those high-level additions are part of hundreds of new features launched in the Xanadu release. Here's a look at the Xanadu release.
AI Agents and generative AI
Agents are the hot commodity in generative AI and ServiceNow previewed its direction with autonomous AI approaches at its Knowledge conference earlier this year.
AI Agents in ServiceNow's platform are designed to automate tasks and make decisions based on all enterprise data across multiple roles and industries.
ServiceNow said it will integrate agentic AI throughout its platform with use cases including IT, customer service, procurement, HR and other enterprise functions. In November, ServiceNow will launch AI agents in its Customer Service Management (CSM) and IT Service Management offerings.
Jon Sigler, senior vice president of platform and AI at ServiceNow, said the company's strategy revolves around enabling AI agents to "work autonomously in the background, handling tasks, managing processes and collaborating with employees rather than just serving them."
ServiceNow is also providing an AI Skill Kit so enterprises can customize skills to their workflows and needs. ServiceNow has been posting strong revenue growth with a practical approach to generative AI and a focus on use cases. ServiceNow recently announced the acquisition of Raytion, a genAI search tool that will be integrated into the Now Platform. Boomi and ServiceNow also formed a strategic partnership that will blend Boomi's application programming interface management and automation platform with ServiceNow's Now Platform.
"There is a critical need for automation and AI solutions that deliver value and drive better business outcomes without needing to invest in new technology stacks," said Dorit Zilbershot, vice president of project management, AI at ServiceNow. "Our vision is to leverage AI Agents that can understand the environment and all available data across the enterprise and make decisions and take actions."
These AI Agents can do the following:
- Autonomously diagnose issues, make decisions and execute actions based on predefined policies and enterprise data.
- Tap into all available data in an enterprise including historical cases, knowledge articles, workflows and policies.
- Summarize past interactions with customers.
- Generate email replies to customer support cases based on all relevant data.
- Automate routine tasks such as troubleshooting, providing discounts and handling customer queries.
- Suggest actions that can improve processes.
In addition, ServiceNow has launched new generative AI updates for email reply generation, data visualization and various workflows. Generative AI additions to Xanadu include Now Assist genAI tools for security operations, sourcing and procurement.
Key items include:
- Integration with Microsoft Copilot is generally available.
- Now Assist for SecOps enables teams to transfer interactions with genAI summarization and Q&A to prioritize incident response.
- Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement Operations streamlines processes for submitting requests, review and compliance.
- Now Assist Skill Kit enables partners and customers to create custom genAI skills for their use cases with multiple large language models.
- Now Assist for IT Service Management summarizes change requests and related data.
- Now Assist for HR Service Delivery (HRDS) engages employees and managers to complete tasks like approvals, training and goal setting with LLM prompts.
RaptorDB Pro
Xanadu will include RaptorDB Pro, which can improve transaction times by as much as 53% and deliver answers to queries 27x faster.
RaptorDB Pro adds a column data store architecture optimized for large datasets that improves speed and efficiency of querying data. ServiceNow said the addition of RaptorDB Pro is abstracted away from customers so they don't have to interact with the database or adjust workflows.
According to ServiceNow, RaptorDB Pro will include a unified Knowledge Graph that connects events, operations and people data. Pat Casey, CTO and executive vice president, DevOps at ServiceNow, said RaptorDB will be useful for data processing, AI inferencing and analytics. "Customers can scale their workflows with speed, connectivity, and personalization on the ServiceNow platform," said Casey.
Other key points:
- RaptorDB Standard includes improvements to ServiceNow's current database and is available to new customers today and all customers next year.
- RaptorDB Pro is the premium version of the new database and available to new and existing customers.
- ServiceNow is rolling out the RaptorDB Lighthouse Program to select customers.
- Early next year, ServiceNow plans to launch personalized workflows via Knowledge Graph with availability in March.
Industry enhancements
The Xanadu release will expand Now Assist into telecom, media and technology, financial services, public sector and retail.
Among the industry additions:
- Now Assist for Banking integrates with Dispute Management.
- Retail Operations and Retail Service Management aim to unify workflows between store associates, corporate headquarters, customers and technicians.
- Now Assist for Telecom, Media and Technology helps agents understand service problems quickly and resolve issues by using genAI to summarize issues and diagnose them.
- Now Assist for Insurance summarizes claims, provides context and minimizes mistakes.
- Now Assist for Public Sector Digital Services gives government employees relevant case history, summaries and insights to make decisions.
Productivity enhancements
ServiceNow's Now Platform Xanadu release adds more tools to streamline workflows and processes.
For developers, the Now Platform gets a new IDE that aims to enable developers to collaborate across teams. "This is a new way of developing on our platform and the IDE allows developers to easily create and modify ServiceNow applications in just minutes," said Amy Lokey, Chief Experience Officer.
In addition, Xanadu adds updates to AIOps and Service Reliability Management and Guided Self-Service in Employee Center.
Chris Bedi, chief customer officer and interim chief product officer at ServiceNow, noted that proactive service delivery can lower costs, reduce risks and scale business transformation.
Key items include:
- The new IDE enables subject matter experts and developers to collaborate as applications are built.
- ServiceNow launched Enterprise Architecture, an expansion of ServiceNow Application Portfolio Management, in a move to align IT teams and business owners to simplify operations.
- AIOps in IT Operations Management now has Event Management to group and escalate alerts while accessing impact.
