The August 2026 release focuses on giving employees a structured way to navigate and discover company content, giving admins more precise control over task configurations across experiences, and expanding visibility into how employees engage with Employee Slate.
Here's what's new.
What's launching in August 2026• Browse and Topic Pages on EmployeeWorks • Task Configuration enhancements • Other Updates: Content Versioning for Employee Communications, Knowledge Widget Visibility Controls |
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Browse and Topic Pages on EmployeeWorks
We are excited to announce Browse and Topic Pages, a foundational addition to Employee Slate in the August release. While the AI assistant makes it effortless to get answers by asking, not every employee starts with a question — some prefer to explore, orient themselves in a new topic area, or simply browse what's available. Until now, Employee Slate did not have a structured way to support that navigation-first behavior. Browse closes that gap, giving employees a dedicated destination to explore company topics, find relevant knowledge, submit requests, and access tools — all within Employee Slate, without relying on the assistant to get there.
The employee experience
- A new Explore entry in the left navigation opens a flyout tray listing all root-level topics. Employees can jump directly to any topic from the tray, or open the full Explore landing page to see the complete topic hierarchy at once — root topics displayed as cards, each showing an icon, name, short description, and a row of subtopic pills for fast, one-click access.
- Topic pages follow a consistent, templated layout — a header with the topic name and description, followed by subtopics, a Support Resources section, quick links, and featured applications. Knowledge articles and catalog requests in the Support Resources section are assembled automatically from the taxonomy bound to the experience, so employees always see content relevant to the topic they are on. Filtering by articles or requests is available within the section.
- The Ask Auto widget brings topic-specific AI assistance directly onto the page. Service owners can configure suggested prompts tailored to each topic — addressing the questions employees are most likely to ask in that context. Clicking a prompt launches the AI assistant in split view, keeping the topic page visible while the conversation unfolds alongside it. Topics with no configured prompts simply do not show the widget.
- Subtopics are fully navigable — employees can drill into any subtopic from the root topic page and access its associated content and details in the same consistent experience.
Admin configuration
- Taxonomy binding controls which topics appear in Browse. Navigate to All > AIUX Framework > AI Experiences, open an existing AI Experience such as Employee Slate, select the AI Experience Properties related list, and select the Taxonomy property to edit or update the taxonomy value. The out-of-the-box employee taxonomy ships pre-selected and can be switched to a different taxonomy at any time.
- Template assignment determines how each topic page renders. In the topic record, open the Experience Topic Template Mapping related list to assign a specific template — mapping it to the relevant topic and experience. Any topic without an assigned template automatically falls back to the default topic template, which can also be changed via experience properties. To apply the same layout across an entire topic hierarchy, enable the Apply to children option on the parent topic and the system automatically propagates the template to all child topics, eliminating the need to configure each one individually.
- Topic-specific prompts for the Ask Auto widget are configured directly from the topic form. Admins can create a new prompt or associate an existing one, and the widget appears on the topic page as soon as prompts are added.
- Content visibility is controlled by a system property (sn_ex_ai_portal.hide_topics_with_no_content) that is set to false by default, meaning all root topics appear on the Explore landing page regardless of whether they have content associated with them. When enabled, the property evaluates each topic and displays only those with accessible content behind them.
For organizations migrating from Employee Center, this release also delivers full browse parity, so existing taxonomy structures, content permissions, and Connected Content configurations carry over with no re-setup required.
Refer to the Browse and Topic Page product documentation for additional details.
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Task Configuration Enhancements
Until now, task configurations in Employee Center and Employee Slate were shared — any change made to a configuration applied to both experiences at once, making it difficult to tailor the task experience for Employee Slate without the risk of unintentionally affecting Employee Center. The August release changes this by giving admins the ability to specify which experience a task configuration applies to, so each experience can be managed independently. Along with this, the release also brings new options for custom action widgets and more flexible AI Insights configuration — giving admins greater control over how tasks are displayed and enriched with AI across the board.
What's new for admins
- Scoping configurations by experience — Navigate to All > Employee Center > Administration > To-dos Configurations, select an existing to-dos configuration, and open the Task Configuration related list. A new Applies to field on task configuration records lets admins specify whether a configuration applies to Employee Center, Employee Slate, or both. Previously, any change to a task configuration affected both experiences simultaneously. Now, admins can make changes specific to Employee Slate without touching existing Employee Center widget mappings, and vice versa. The field defaults to All for existing records after an upgrade, so nothing breaks out of the box. Depending on the scope selected, only the relevant widget fields appear — keeping the configuration form focused and reducing the chance of misconfiguration.
- Custom action widgets for Employee Slate — Task configurations now support a dedicated AIX action widget field that accepts Lit-based widgets. When configured, the widget replaces the standard action group and renders in both the task list view and the task detail view within Employee Slate. For configurations scoped to Employee Center, the existing Angular widget behavior remains unchanged. If no custom action widget is added to the AIX field, the action group falls back to standard Employee Center behavior.
- Flexible AI Insights configuration — Admins can now configure a specific Now Assist skill for each task type, so the AI insights employees see in the Task Details widget are relevant to the task they are reviewing — not generic. For example, a leave approval task can surface time-off balance details, a contract task can show field-level insights, and a Concur approval task can run a policy compliance check. Admins can choose from existing pre-configured skills provided by ServiceNow, or build a custom one. The AI Insights tab is available only when the Applies to field is set to All or Employee Slate, since AI insights apply to Employee Slate only.
- Custom scripts for AI Insights — For tasks that need data from outside ServiceNow before AI insights can run, admins can enable the Use custom script option on the AI Insights tab and write a script in the Skill execution script field. The script runs before the AI skill is invoked — fetching data from external systems, enriching the task record with that context, and passing it to the skill before the insight is generated. A practical example: fetching an employee's leave balance from Workday before a leave-approval task runs, or retrieving prior expense reports from Concur before an expense review. The result is an AI insight that reflects the full picture, not just what lives in ServiceNow.
Refer to Task Configuration product documentation for additional details.
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Other Enhancements
- Content Versioning for Employee Communications — Content managers can now publish announcements with full version tracking, meaning every edit is explicitly logged as a new version. Published content is locked from accidental edits, and a version history is accessible directly from the authoring editor.
- Knowledge Widget Visibility Controls — Admins can now control whether the author name and last updated date appear on knowledge articles in the Knowledge widget. Navigate to All > AI Experience Framework > Components > Widget Instances, open the Knowledge widget instance record, and set the showAuthor and showLastUpdated properties to show or hide these fields.
Get started with Employee Slate
Employee Slate is available within ServiceNow EmployeeWorks, with new capabilities shipping every month. Explore the May 2026 Release Blog, review the Getting Started Guide, check the FAQs, and access product documentation to get started.
