IT just got smarter 

Every company in the world needs to reduce risk and uncertainty in its IT operations, ITOM. The best way to do that is by combining AI and digital workflows. It’s all about applying machine learning to operational data so that you can generate insights about potential system issues, and then launch automated workflows that resolve problems fast—ideally, before they impact customers.  

Today’s partnership announcement between IBM and ServiceNow is great news for enterprise customers. We’re combining AI-powered hybrid cloud software and professional services from IBM with intelligent, self-learning workflows running on the Now Platform® to deliver cutting-edge IT service and operations management.   

Engineers at IBM and ServiceNow teamed up to create a joint IT solution, the first of its kind, that marries IBM Watson AI with ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) and IT Operations Management (ITOM). The joint solution will enable customers to enhance employee productivity, have full visibility into their operational footprint, and respond to incidents and issues faster. 

Clients will gain deeper, AI-driven insights from their data. The joint solution creates a baseline of their normal IT environment. It provides recommendations for actions to prevent and fix IT issues at scale, before they become problems. As a result, customers can free up valuable time and IT resources from maintenance activities to focus on driving the transformation projects necessary to support the digital demands of their businesses.  

The new solution will be enabled through a joint go-to-market strategy, and will be available later this year from IBM.

ServiceNow ITSM allows IT to deliver scalable services on a single intelligent cloud platform to increase productivity by 20% (according to a Forrester estimate) and resolve issues faster, creating amazing employee experiences.  ServiceNow ITOM Visibility leverages Service Graph, the next evolution of our native Configuration Management Database (CMDB), to deliver automated, near real-time visibility into the true operational state of all resources and business services.   

Historically, the CMDB functioned as a single source of truth for your IT infrastructure. Modern IT organizations increasingly need consistent, data-driven insight into the entire digital lifecycle, not just inventory and asset management.  Stemming from our acquisition of Sweagle, Service Graph now underpins all of ServiceNow’s solutions, enabling businesses, for the first time, to integrate technology, people, and processes into a service-oriented view. 

IBM Watson AI applies machine learning and AI to IT operations, automating how enterprises self-detect, diagnose, respond to, and remediate IT anomalies in real time. Customers get anomaly detection along with automated recommendations based on deep analysis of prior incidents.  

IBM algorithms and baselining techniques will provide important context to ServiceNow, enabling streamlined incident management, making the data more useful to agents and retraining the AI over time. Thanks to the power of AI and machine learning, the average time to resolve incidents can be reduced by 65 percent. Using ServiceNow’s IT workflow capabilities, meanwhile, all actions and insights will be recorded for auditing purposes and to generate future insights.   

 Using the IBM and ServiceNow joint solution, IT pros will be able to obtain a full view of an issue, from start to finish.  With recommendations and deep diagnosis from IBM Watson AI, a service agent can quickly understand the incident, without ever leaving ServiceNow.  

 On the implementation side, IBM is expanding its global ServiceNow practice to include additional capabilities that provide advisory, implementation, and managed services on the Now Platform.  ServiceNow is co-investing to train and certify IBM employees and dedicated staff for customer success.  

IT risk is no joke in today’s technology-driven enterprises. Even the smallest outage can cause massive financial and reputational damage. In fact, market research firm Aberdeen pegs the average cost of an outage at about $260,000 an hour. Together, IBM and ServiceNow will help customers overcome these challenges by automating old, manual IT processes and increasing IT productivity.   

Hats off to the talented IBM and ServiceNow teams that collaborated to build this innovative solution. Together we’re delivering great technology and services that make work, work better for people.   

Use of Forward-Looking Statements 

This blog contains “forward-looking statements” about the expectations, beliefs, plans, and intentions relating to the partnership between IBM and ServiceNow. Such forward-looking statements include statements regarding expected performance and benefits of our new solution and go-to-market strategy. Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expected or implied by the forward-looking statements. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, our results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. We undertake no obligation, and do not intend, to update the forwardlooking statements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements include: (i) delays and unexpected difficulties and expenses related the solution; (ii) uncertainty as to whether sales of such solution will justify this strategy and investment; and (iii) changes in the regulatory landscape related to the solution. Further information on factors that could affect our financial and other results is included in the filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time. 

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