Autonomous IT at scale: How ServiceNow reengineered its service desk

Autonomous IT: woman looking to the side in front of an open laptop on a table

In today’s enterprise, IT leaders face a dual mandate: drive operational efficiency and enable strategic agility. At ServiceNow, we’ve embraced this challenge by transforming our service desk into a fully autonomous IT engine—one that both helps resolve issues and redefines how work flows across the business.

Our journey began with modernizing IT for the IT team—streamlining operations, automating workflows, and proving the value of the ServiceNow AI Platform internally. But the real transformation started when we scaled horizontally into HR, legal, and finance, and then vertically into every function.

The autonomous IT service desk

As of September 2025, we’ve achieved zero-touch Level 1 IT support. This is much more than automation—it’s a strategic shift. Here’s how we got here:

Business alignment: We mapped IT objectives directly to enterprise goals, ensuring relevance and impact.
Persona-based design: We tailored our support solutions to user segments, improving accuracy and satisfaction.
Data-driven assessment: We evaluated all interactions (T1 incidents and requests) and existing support systems to identify gaps and automation opportunities.
Roadmap development: We defined a clear path to move from reactive support to proactive service delivery.
Prioritization of automation: We targeted high-volume, low-effort tasks first to maximize our return on investment.
Workflow automation: We built intelligent workflows and deployed them incrementally across departments.
Incremental rollout: We managed change in phases to ensure adoption and minimize disruption.

The result? All level 1 interactions—both incidents and requests—are resolved autonomously, freeing agents for strategic work and reducing resolution time from 75 minutes to less than 10.

All level 1 interactions are resolved autonomously, freeing agents for strategic work and reducing resolution time from 75 minutes to less than 10.

One system of engagement for every employee

IT leaders know that uptime is currency. The ServiceNow IT Operations Management suite—Service Observability, Health Log Analytics, Metric Intelligence, and Event Management—streams real-time signals from more than 12,000 apps, more than 5,000 servers, and 30,000 employees into a unified dashboard.

This enables predictive insight, root cause analysis, and proactive resolution—before issues affect business continuity.

We’ve consolidated fragmented service channels into a single, intuitive interface. Employees, from interns to executives, can ask anything and get fast, accurate support.

Now Assist answers questions, guides next steps, summarizes tickets, and prioritizes work.
Hyperpersonalization tailors support to individual roles and needs, improving satisfaction and productivity.
Cross-functional reach across IT, HR, legal, procurement, and other areas is accessible through one front door.

An autonomous IT service desk isn’t a future vision—it’s a present reality at ServiceNow. For IT leaders, it’s a blueprint for transforming service delivery, amplifying human potential, and building an enterprise that runs smarter, faster, and more resiliently.

Find out more about how ServiceNow can help you put AI to work with autonomous IT.