Introducing autonomous HR with AI agents at Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo

The promise of HR has always been simple: create workplaces where people thrive. Yet somewhere along the way, that mission got buried under an avalanche of tickets, approvals, and administrative tasks—a manual grind that consumes entire workdays and teams without creating meaningful value.

Continuing our agentic AI innovations at ServiceNow, I’m excited to share what’s next: new AI agents and capabilities to deliver autonomous HR outcomes—where AI takes on repetitive tasks so that people can do the human work that grows the business.

These intelligent agents are context-aware and cross-departmental, able to handle complete HR workflows from start to finish. They’re also managed, monitored, and governed by ServiceNow^® AI Control Tower, which keeps their actions secure, transparent, and aligned with policy.

The hidden cost of HR busywork

In a typical week for an HR team, most of the workday is lost to merely hunting for information. Time-off requests require manual approval, payroll questions demand looking up the same information repeatedly, policy clarifications are scattered across multiple systems, and onboarding checklists rely on coordinating across departments.

Managers click through endless screens when they should be coaching their teams. HR teams drown in low-value tasks. Manual tasks and busywork waste hours daily, creating a mundane workday that steals focus from the strategic work that moves the business forward.

AI that works freely across departments

Other AI agents built today are simply agent systems of record that work in the same silos that have plagued organizations for decades, cut off from the broader flow of work. ServiceNow AI Agents move freely across your business, the way people do.

Imagine an employee relocation request. One click sets off a chain of autonomous AI agents across HR, finance, procurement, legal, and workplace services. Compensation updates, budget shifts, contract changes, relocation vendor sourcing, and office setup all happen automatically, perfectly orchestrated.

That’s what real enterprise impact looks like when AI agents act rather than just answering questions. When AI agents are deployed across HR and connected systems, busywork stops being a bottleneck. With autonomous HR, AI agents execute end-to-end work—involving humans when required—to complete tasks and enhance employee experiences.

The results:

• HR and managers reclaim time for strategic talent work.
• Manager and employee productivity improves.
• Capacity returns to the business.

Autonomous HR drives a shift from reactive HR service delivery to proactive, intelligent, autonomous orchestration of the employee lifecycle.

Innovations for everyday employee work

Let's take a closer look at the innovations planned for release in Q4 2025 and 2026 to move HR from busywork to strategic leadership.

Next-gen AI employee experience

Instead of navigating a maze of systems, employees get one AI front door—a single place where answers, actions, and automation come together to collapse hours of work into just a few clicks. Routine requests such as updating benefits, checking pay, or getting a policy document are instantly handled from start to finish by AI agents.

For more complex or sensitive cases, AI agents seamlessly bring HR or other human experts into the same workflow so that nothing stalls or slips through the cracks.

Employees can ask questions in plain language, approve requests with a tap, or get what they need with a swipe—without needing to know who to ask or which department has the answer.

AI agents orchestrate everything behind the scenes, from provisioning a laptop to setting up building access to enrolling in benefits to scheduling orientations to assigning training—all without the employee lifting a finger. Everyday work moves autonomously so that employees are freed to focus on strategic work.

What makes this possible is the way ServiceNow connects AI agents with deterministic workflows across HR, IT, workplace services, and finance, helping to ensure that every task is completed accurately and seamlessly. This results in effortless everyday productivity. That’s the power of the ServiceNow AI Platform.

AI Voice Agents for anywhere, anytime support

Need to check your pay, update benefits, or figure out where to go on your first day but can’t reach HR? Conversational AI changes that, giving people immediate, 24/7 help for completing tasks related to onboarding, scheduling, payroll, and policy—anytime, anywhere.

A frontline warehouse employee can say, “Find someone to cover my Saturday shift,” or, “Send me my latest pay stub,” and get an instant answer or completed request without logging in to a portal or sending a follow-up email.

This is powered by the ServiceNow AI Platform, which connects any data source, any AI model, and any workflow to deliver context-aware, personalized, and proactive interactions. Our AI agents don’t just assist. They complete tasks end to end, without friction.

HR Business Partner Hub with AI

HR business partners (HRBPs) traditionally spend hours digging through spreadsheets and chasing down data just to spot early signs of attrition. By the time they find a pattern, it’s often too late to intervene. With HR Business Partner Hub (available 2026), those signals surface immediately. AI highlights where turnover is spiking, drafts an action plan, and even automates outreach to managers so that HR can focus on keeping talent, not tracking it.

HRBPs gain an AI-native workspace that automates tactical work, surfaces workforce signals such as attrition risk, and drafts proactive action plans. Instead of wrangling spreadsheets or chasing managers, HRBPs can spend time on talent growth and strategy.

HR’s role in AI transformation

The future of work is shaped by the choices leaders make each day. Too many HR teams are stuck in triage. Automating answers isn’t enough—AI agents must execute and close the loop so that managers can coach, HR can plan, and employees can do their best work. When that happens at scale with autonomous HR, you get measurable business impact.

As Jacqui Canney, chief people and AI enablement officer at ServiceNow, emphasizes in HR’s Role in AI Transformation, AI is ultimately a human endeavor. Technology is the catalyst, but it’s people—equipped with the right skills, confidence, and vision—who determine whether AI creates complexity or unlocks a new era of growth.

If you’re attending the Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo 2025 conference, don’t miss “Demystifying AI Agents for HR: What HR Leaders Need to Know.” ServiceNow will demonstrate how AI agents are powering the shift to autonomous HR while keeping people at the center of the agentic future of work.

Find out more about how ServiceNow can help you put AI to work for HR.