Transforming the Employee Experience with AI: Highlights from Wednesdays @ One
By Mark Andreopoulos, Sr Advisory Solution Consultant, Employee Workflows
We just had our inaugural “Wednesdays @ One”—formerly known as Demo Center! In this session, we explored how AI is revolutionizing the employee experience, with a special focus on ServiceNow’s latest AI powered Now Assist capabilities. Here’s a recap of the key insights and demonstration from our discussion.
The Evolution of AI on ServiceNow
ServiceNow has been investing in AI since 2018, starting with features like AI Search and predictive intelligence for case management. Over the past two years, the focus has shifted to generative AI, culminating in the launch of “Now Assist”—a suite of capabilities designed to empower employees to self-serve and resolve issues without always needing human intervention.
Key Takeaway: AI is not new to ServiceNow, but its role is expanding rapidly, especially with generative and Agentic AI powering new experiences.
The Challenge: Simplifying Employee Experience
Employees often face a maze of portals and tools when seeking help—whether it’s checking PTO balances, resolving payroll issues, or submitting tuition reimbursement requests. Now Assist aims to simplify this by providing a single digital front door, where employees can self-serve, deflect cases, and get answers quickly, regardless of their channel of choice!
Now Assist leverages generative AI to:
- Understand employee intent and context.
- Provide human-like responses.
- Deflect cases by enabling self-service.
- Leverage data both on and off the ServiceNow platform in a responsible manner.
- Seamlessly escalate to humans when needed (e.g., sensitive HR issues).
Serving Every Persona, Across Every Channel
Vision: Every employee, regardless of role or location, should have a seamless, consistent experience.
Demonstration: Self-Service and Deflection in Action
During the session, we walked through several real-world scenarios:
- Employee Self-Service: Emily, a new hire, uses Employee Center to ask about her benefits. Now Assist analyzes her role and location, providing tailored answers and links to relevant knowledge articles and catalog items. Follow-up questions—like eligibility for the Employee Stock Purchase Plan—are answered instantly, with sources cited for transparency.
- Proactive Notifications: Employees receive alerts about pending approvals or important deadlines (e.g., unused PTO), prompting action before issues arise.
- Automated Workflows: Requests like tuition reimbursement are handled conversationally. Employees simply describe their needs, and Now Assist extracts relevant details, fills out forms, and initiates approval workflows—minimizing manual effort.
- Payroll Discrepancies: Employees can report issues (e.g., missing overtime pay), upload supporting documents, and have cases automatically routed to the right team, with AI and human agents collaborating for resolution!
Empowering Leaders: Manager Hub & Journey Designer
Leaders benefit from AI-powered tools that summarize team progress, highlight blockers, and support growth conversations. For example, managers can:
- Review onboarding journeys and see completion rates.
- Get AI-generated summaries of employee skills, aspirations, and training history to prepare for growth discussions.
- Approve requests and monitor team activities—all from a unified interface.
Responsible AI: Balancing Automation and Human Touch
While AI can handle many routine queries, ServiceNow recognizes the importance of human intervention for sensitive issues. The platform can detect when escalation is needed (e.g., harassment cases) and route employees to HR or other support teams.
Looking Ahead
ServiceNow continues to innovate, with new features rolling out on a quarterly and even monthly basis for Now Assist. The goal is to make every employee’s journey—from hire to retire—more efficient, personalized, and satisfying.
Be on the lookout for exciting new capabilities such as AI Voice Agents, Talent and Hiring experiences, and much more in the coming months.
I always say that the most exciting AI/Now Assist feature is the one we don’t yet know about!
Final Thought: AI is transforming the way organizations support their employees through deflection and self-service. By combining generative and Agentic AI with thoughtful design, ServiceNow is helping companies deliver exceptional employee experiences.
If you missed the session, here is the recording and demo:
