Announced at Knowledge 2026 in Las Vegas, ServiceNow Otto is the company's most significant commercial and product shift in years. AI is no longer an add-on. It now ships with every product, at every tier, from day one - and the conversation partners have with customers changes completely as a result.
This post breaks down what Otto is, how Moveworks fits in, and how AI capabilities are structured across the three new tiers: Foundation, Advanced, and Prime.
THE PROBLEM OTTO IS BUILT TO SOLVE:
Enterprise AI has long had what ServiceNow calls a "completion problem." Other vendors embed AI inside their own applications - useful for answering questions, but unable to finish work that crosses departments or systems. Employees still have to switch between tools, chase approvals, and manually route their own requests.
ServiceNow Otto is built for exactly this gap. Rather than living inside a single application, Otto sits across the entire enterprise, understanding intent, routing work to the right agent, and executing it to completion.
"Moveworks understood what employees needed. ServiceNow could do the work. Together, we built ServiceNow Otto - an AI experience that completes work, across any system, department, or workflow."
- Bhavin Shah, SVP & GM of Employee Experience and AI, ServiceNow
WHAT IS SERVICENOW OTTO?
Otto is ServiceNow's new unified AI brand, bringing together three previously separate capabilities:
- Now Assist: ServiceNow's native GenAI for summarization, categorization, and in-platform task assistance.
- Moveworks: The conversational AI layer acquired in March 2025 (~$2.85B), now integrated as the employee-facing front door across all tiers.
- AI Experience: The AI-native interaction layer announced at Knowledge 2025, enabling multimodal and agentic orchestration.
Otto's four core capabilities:
- Conversational AI: Submit requests in natural language; Otto routes and resolves across departments without switching tools.
- Enterprise Search: Searches documents, wikis, databases, and SharePoint - personalized by role and location.
- AI Voice Agents: Handles voice requests in multiple languages.
- AI Data Explorer: Query enterprise data in plain language to surface analytics and insights
Every Otto action is logged, governed, and made explainable through the AI Control Tower.
THE PACKAGING SHIFT: AI IN EVERY PRODUCT
On April 9, 2026, ServiceNow restructured its commercial model. AI is no longer a separate SKU. Every product now ships with a full AI package by default - no integrations, no separate procurement.
Every tier - Foundation, Advanced, and Prime - includes these components automatically:
- Moveworks (conversational AI layer)
- Workflow Data Fabric (cross-system data access)
- AI Control Tower (governance and observability)
- Process Mining
What changes across tiers is not whether AI is present - it's how autonomously it operates.
The progression: ASSISTED (Foundation) → AGENTIC (Advanced) → AUTONOMOUS (Prime)
TIER 1: FOUNDATION - AI HELPS THE TEAM'S WORK
Mode: Assisted
What's included: OOTB GenAI Skills & AI Agents
AI acts as a force-multiplier for human workers - not replacing steps but accelerating and enriching them.
- Capabilities:
• Summarization of incidents, cases, and documents
• Pattern recognition and auto-categorization
• Task-based assistance and smart recommendations
• Moveworks conversational layer
• Virtual Agent with Now Assist Foundation
• Predictive Intelligence
• App Engine Starter (10 tables)
Best for: Teams that want AI to handle drafting, categorization, and employee queries through a conversational interface - without deep workflow automation.
TIER 2: ADVANCED - AI COMPLETES PARTS OF THE WORK
Mode: Agentic
What's included: OOTB Agentic Workflows
AI begins to own entire steps in a workflow. It understands context, applies domain knowledge, and automates complete processes end-to-end.
- Capabilities (in addition to Foundation):
• Understands full workflow context
• Applies domain-specific knowledge
• Automates entire processes end-to-end
• Now Assist Advanced + Moveworks Advanced
• Cross-system workflow automation via Workflow Data Fabric
Best for: Organizations ready to automate multi-step processes like onboarding/offboarding, change management, or procurement - where AI handles the full sequence, not just individual tasks.
TIER 3: PRIME - AI COMPLETES WORK END-TO-END
Mode: Autonomous
What's included: Create Custom AI Specialists, Agents & Skills
AI specialists operate independently as digital employees with role-based expertise. They are fully independent, make decisions, and execute work without constant human oversight.
- Capabilities (in addition to Advanced):
• L1 Service Desk AI Specialist (generally available as of Knowledge 2026)
• AI Agents for ITSM, DEX, CRM, HR, Finance, Legal, Security
• Now Assist Prime + Moveworks Prime
• DevOps Change Velocity + Digital Product Release
• Process Mining (15,000 records/year)
• App Engine Starter (50 tables)
Best for: Enterprises that want AI to fully staff their Level 1 helpdesk, handle HR queries end-to-end, and operate as named "AI teammates" in the org chart.
Real-world proof: Rolls-Royce deployed Now Assist (internally branded "Merlin") in August 2025, reaching 12,000 employees. Within months: 54% IT deflection rate, 38,000 incidents resolved via predictive intelligence, and 300,000 shop floor hours returned to engineers.
AI CONTROL TOWER: GOVERNANCE ACROSS EVERY TIER
Regardless of tier, every Otto interaction passes through AI Control Tower - expanded significantly at Knowledge 2026 across five dimensions:
- Discover - 30 new integrations (AWS, Azure, GCP, SAP, Oracle, Workday) + connected OT/IoT devices.
- Observe - Continuous runtime monitoring via Traceloop acquisition; visibility into how agents reason.
- Govern - AI-driven risk assessment aligned to global compliance frameworks.
- Secure - Identity security via Veza integration, extended to hyperscale environments.
- Measure - Cost tracking and ROI dashboards (ServiceNow tracked $500M+ in cumulative AI value through its own Control Tower in 2025).
Referred Documentation:
- Partner Portal documents (need access of partner portal): ServiceNow Otto landing page
- Press Release of Knowledge 2026: ServiceNow Otto creates the unified AI experience for the enterprise - ServiceNow Newsroom
- Moveworks release: ServiceNow Otto creates the unified AI experience for the enterprise
#servicenow #otto #AI-implementation
