Now Assist for ITOM: FAQ

vlo · ‎07-22-2024

Introduction

This article answers frequently asked questions about Now Assist for ITOM and will be updated as needed.

What is Now Assist for IT Operations Management

1. What Now Assist for ITOM Capabilities are currently available?

Alert Assist
- Alert Analysis
- Alert Investigation

2. What ServiceNow version must a customer be on to leverage Now Assist for ITOM?

Xanadu DC Patch 3 (For Version 1.2.0 released in November 2024)

3. What are the required plugins?

For a detailed list, refer to the store listing

4. Can new Now Assist for ITOM capabilities be expected? Such as for the other ITOM products.

Keep up to date with the newest features and enhancements for Now Assist for ITOM by attending the quarterly ITOM What’s New webinars held for ITOM AIOps and ITOM Visibility.

5. What is Alert Assist?

Alert Assist improves the operator experience for analyzing and investigation alerts in ITOM Event Management through the skills of Alert Analysis and Alert Investigation. Alert Analysis provides a brief of the alert, insights on the potential root cause and remediation actions. Alert Investigation leverages historical closed/resolved incidents to provide a summary of past resolution strategies.

6. How is Alert Analysis & Alert Investigation triggered?

Alert Analysis must be manually triggered in the Service Operations Workspace through Express List, alert form, or in the Now Assist Panel.
Alert Investigation must be manually triggered in the alert form using the Now Assist Panel.

7. How is Alert Analysis generated?

For individual alerts, Alert Analysis generation is based on the description of the individual alert.
For primary alerts of applicable alert groups, Alert Analysis generation is based on the group type, and individual alert record data. From each of the individual alerts in the group, the relevant alert data includes description, impacted services, CIs, and probable root cause.

8. How is Alert Investigation generated?

Alert Investigation leverages historical incidents that have been closed/resolved on the same CI as the alert that is being investigated. Resolution notes from relevant incidents are summarized.

Implementation & Setup Questions

1. How do you implement Now Assist for ITOM?

Please refer to How to Setup Now Assist for ITOM

2. I am in a global organization, is Now Assist for ITOM available outside of the US and for other languages?

Now Assist is available in all Geo's. Currently Alert Assist is only supported in English.

3. Where can I find additional details on the Now LLM?

Learn more about the Now LLM Service here.

4. Does clicking on install in Now Assist Admin check on licensing entitlement first before sending the user to the store for activation?

Licensing entitlement checks will happen in the Store.

Licensing & SKU-related

1. Do I need to have my own license for OpenAI or Azure OpenAI?

No. Now LLM is the model used to power Now Assist for ITOM.

2. Is Now Assist for ITOM available for all ITOM subscriptions?

No. Now Assist for ITOM is a new SKU that customers can upgrade to called ITOM Operator Professional Plus or ITOM AIOPs Enterprise Plus. Speak with your ServiceNow account team to learn more.

3. What are the platform features that are included in ITOM Pro+ and Enterprise+

Customers will be able to leverage Now Assist for ITOM.

4. Is Now Assist for ITSM approved for use in GCC environments?

As of the May 2024 release, Now Assist is not yet approved for GCC.

5. What is an ‘Assist’ and how does the Assist entitlement work?

An Assist is a unit for measuring Gen AI usage. Each action a customer performs using Generative AI consumes one or more Assists. Assists are pooled across products on the contract and can be used on all instances mapped to the contract (prod and sub-prod).

6. Are there Integration Hub transaction costs for each API call to the Now LLM?

No. Now Assist (incl the AI Controller) uses 'Assists;’ not API calls.

7. Does the Now Assist Admin Analytics page show how many “Assists” were consumed?

No, Assists will show in Subscription Management

Data Security

1. How can I be sure my data is kept private?

Every data exchange between the customer instance and the regional AI service node(s) is encrypted; any data in transit is protected with TLS 1.2. The input and output data is not cached or stored on the regional data center. See the Product-Specific Terms for more detailed information.

2. When it comes to training the large language model, will customer instance data be used for modeling and iterative improvements? Or is it just relying on data internal to ServiceNow with a generic model?

Yes. Not only does Now Assist strip out Personally Identifying Information (PII) info prior to using data for training, it also gives customers options to opt out of data sharing to train LLM's 30 days after contracting.