Unlocking ROI on your AI | The ServiceNow AI People Readiness Playbook — Don’t Go Live Without It
Hi, Community. I'm Kate Collins, Director of the User Adoption team at ServiceNow University. Over the past 18 months, our team has worked with hundreds of organizations deploying AI on the ServiceNow platform. And we've learned something that keeps showing up in every single rollout: the organizations that succeed aren't the ones with the best technology — they're the ones who planned for the people first.
Here's what we see repeatedly: Teams lock their go-live dates. Approve the business case. Configure the use cases. And then adoption stalls. The platform is live. The features work. But people are slow to adopt, workarounds creep back in, and the ROI that was promised never materializes. When we dig into what went wrong, it's almost never a technology problem. It's a readiness problem — and here's the thing: it's almost entirely preventable.
The ServiceNow AI People Readiness Playbook exists for exactly this reason. It's the guide that should be open before your implementation kicks off, not after adoption stalls. Because the difference between an AI rollout that sticks and one that quietly faes is whether someone planned for the people alongside the technology.
Download the AI People Readiness Playbook for free:
The ServiceNow AI People Readiness Playbook
What Is It?
The AI People Readiness Playbook is a free, practical guide created by the ServiceNow University User Adoption team. It’s built on the same proven methodology we use with customers around the world, and it’s written for everyone who has a role in deciding what goes live, when, and for whom — HR, L&D, and change leaders, program and product managers, platform and business process owners, and the implementation partners supporting them.
It walks you through a three-phase approach — Plan, Act, Adopt — with the guidance, tools, and frameworks you need at every stage.
What’s Inside
The playbook is packed with content you can put to work immediately:
- A five-level AI maturity assessment to benchmark where your organization is today and what to prioritize first
- Stakeholder mapping and a change commitment matrix to help you understand who’s affected, how, and what each group needs from you
- A champion network design guide — including where to find your best champions (hint: your shadow AI assessment will tell you)
- AI literacy baseline surveys and pulse check questions to measure awareness, confidence, and trust before go-live
- A practical breakdown of what makes AI change different from traditional technology rollouts — including how to address FOBO (fear of becoming obsolete), because ignoring it doesn’t make it go away
- Persona-specific training guidance mapped directly to ServiceNow University learning paths, covering end users, process agents, managers, technical admins, and executive sponsors
- Strategies to equip managers as the multipliers of frontline adoption — because managers are the single biggest variable in whether AI adoption succeeds or stalls
- A measurement framework organized around three signal categories: Build Knowledge, Build Trust, and Align Rewards
- A minimum viable readiness timeline for teams working toward a six-week go-live
Whether you’re deploying Now Assist, launching AI Agents, or preparing your organization for the shift from assistive to agentic AI, this playbook gives you a clear path forward.
Download the AI People Readiness Playbook for free:
The ServiceNow AI People Readiness Playbook
Part of a Broader Set of Free AI Readiness Resources
You can explore the full set — including Now Assist Ready-to-Go Packs, champion enablement assets, and change communications templates — on the User Adoption resources page.
Who We Are
The ServiceNow University User Adoption team helps customers turn platform investments into real business outcomes — not by focusing on the technology alone, but by preparing the people who use it. Drawing on experience across hundreds of rollouts, the team delivers expert-led engagements, customized training content, change enablement coaching, and integrated adoption strategies tailored to each organization’s culture and goals.
Whether you’re approaching your first AI go-live or scaling adoption across multiple applications, the goal is always the same: give your people the knowledge and confidence they need to work successfully alongside AI on the ServiceNow platform, and give your organization a repeatable framework for every rollout that follows.
For more information, visit the ServiceNow User Adoption homepage.
Views expressed are my own and do not represent ServiceNow, my team, partners, or customers.
