on - edited on by
Steph Morillo
Introduction
Welcome to the Frequently Asked Questions guide for Now Assist for ITSM. Please comment if you have a question not addressed here, and keep checking back for updates.
Table of Contents
Features & Functionalities
Implementation & Enablement Guidance
Licensing & SKU-related
Data Security
General Questions
What is Now Assist for ITSM
- What Now Assist for ITSM Capabilities are currently available out of the box for the Now Assist Admin panel?
- Case Summarization, Chat Summarization, Resolution Notes Generation, Knowledge Article Generation, Change Summarization
- What major features are being released in Q3 for Now Assist for IT Service Management?
-
New Feature/ Enhancement
What
Business Outcomes
Wow Factor
Change Summarization
Quickly come up to speed by summarizing Change Requests and related data
Improve service resilience while increasing change velocity
Help change managers / approvers to take informed decision and increase the probability of successful change implementation
Knowledge Generation from Similar Incidents
Generate a knowledge article leveraging information from a group of similar incidents
Deflect incidents and increase uptime by scaling requestor
self-service contentCreate comprehensive and durable knowledge articles and drive team efficiency
Chat Reply Recommendation
Write with Now Assist to provide agents with quick replies to common questions in chats.
Reduced Mean Time to Resolution and increase Employee Satisfaction
Faster, easier responses for agents during chats, and more consistent experiences for requestors
Sidebar Chat Summarization
Summarize Sidebar chats and post summaries to the work notes of incident, change, and other records
Reduce manual efforts for agents, help them get up to speed quicker; improved documentation leads to better resolution notes and better KB articles, which drives self-service
Drives self-service and improves end-user and agents’ experiences
Now Assist in Virtual Agent in MS Copilot
Access Now Assist directly from Microsoft Copilot in Teams
Faster self-service for requestors.
Fast access to Now Assist to solve issues, tickets, tasks, and get answers
-
- What ServiceNow version must a customer be on to leverage the August 2024 features?
-
Xanadu Patch 1 (released in August 2024)
-
- What are the required plugins?
- Now Assist for Platform
- Now Assist Admin Console
- Now Assist Core
- Now Assist Search (Optional)
- Now Assist for IT Service Management
- Service Operations Workspace
- Advanced Work Assignment
- Virtual Agent
- For Core UI: Vancouver Patch 2 and later releases
- For Service Operations Workspace for ITSM: Service Operations Workspace for ITSM version 3.1 and later versions
-
Can we expect enhancements with regards to Virtual Agent? Such as having more advanced communication experience from user perspective.
-
Yes! The May release includes Out of the Box topics for the LLM-powered virtual agent. Prior releases included a conversational ordering experience and a natural Q&A experience as the Virtual Agent can read the Knowledge article and provide an answer. Customers can also create their own LLM powered topics.
-
-
If a chat is conducted between MS Teams and ServiceNow, could that chat be transferred and summarized?
-
Yes – the chat transcript can be imported into the incident record to be reflected in any summarization and/or resolution notes generation.
-
-
Can Now Assist integrate with 3rd party Knowledge database?
- Generating answers via Now Assist for AI Search from 3rd party data sources (like SharePoint and Confluence) is on the roadmap, targeting Q2 – Q4 2024.
- Does chat summarization work for custom Virtual Agent topics?
-
Yes. Chat summarization considers the full conversation from the end user and the bot, so a Virtual Agent topic being customized does not affect how it is summarized.
-
-
How are the resolution notes generated?
-
Resolution Notes Generation is based on the incident record data (short description, description, work notes, comments etc.).
-
-
What fields are taken from the incident to create the knowledge article?
-
Short description, description, resolution notes, work notes, additional comments fields.
-
- What ServiceNow Platform features are included with Now Assist for ITSM?
- Now Assist Admin, Now Assist Panel, Now Assist Search for Q&A, and Now Assist in Virtual Agent.
- Now Assist in AI Search combines the power of search with the Now LLM generative AI model to answer questions in user searches with actionable AI-generated summaries of relevant knowledge articles.
- Now Assist in Virtual Agent uses large language models (LLMs) and generative AI skills to improve deflection rates. Actionable Q&A Genius Result answers from knowledge article results found in Service Portal, Virtual Agent, Employee Center, and global searches. When a user submits a question in search, AI Search retrieves the top knowledge article result and passes it to the Now LLM for answer generation. Answers augment the user's search results, displaying as actionable Now Assist Q&A Genius Result answer cards. For reference, each answer card includes a link to its source knowledge article.
- Will the Now Assist Admin panel and skills enablement work for custom apps?
- We are shipping 3-4 out-of-the-box skills; only those will be available in the Now Assist panel.
Implementation & Setup Questions
- What implementation materials are external facing?
- See Now Assist for ITSM - Deployment Guide, the Now Assist for ITSM Success Pack, and the Now Assist for ITSM: Quick Start Guide which links to many implementation resources. For implementation certification see Now Assist for IT Service Management (ITSM) Implementation Bootcamp On Demand - Now Learning (servic....
- I am in a global organization, is Now Assist for ITSM available outside of the US and for other languages?
- Now Assist is available in all Geos. Today English is the primary language for most Now Assist features; additional languages are targeted for support in 2024 and 2025. Dynamic Translation is supported in Virtual Agent. Speak with your ServiceNow account team for details.
- Are there any architecture documents for Now Assist for IT Service Management?
-
- Where can I find additional details on the Now LLM?
- To learn more about the models behind Now LLM Service Updates please see this link.
- What are good practices to setting up my Catalog Items so that they are conversational?
- Conversational catalog items in Now Assist in Virtual have the same limitations as NLU Virtual Agent today. Unsupported (non-conversational) items include but are not limited to:
- Dependent questions, scripted UI policies
- Custom variables, checkbox variables, multi-row
- Client scripts
- Advanced reference qualifiers
- Unsupported catalog items are ordered via a pop-up window
- How to tell if a catalog item is conversational: navigate to sc_cat_item > “Show VA render type”
- See the full list at catalog_item_analytics
- Requirements
- Now Assist SKU (Pro+ or Enterprise+)
- Vancouver Patch 4, Washington DC
- Conversational catalog items in Now Assist in Virtual have the same limitations as NLU Virtual Agent today. Unsupported (non-conversational) items include but are not limited to:
- 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
- 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 IT Service Management. Costs for any use cases, not powered by the NowLLM (VA), will NOT be passed to the customer.
-
- If our company is using Azure OpenAI with Now Assist, does Now Assist include my Azure OpenAI subscription costs, i.e. the Tokens we consume using Azure OpenAI?
- No. To use Now Assist for IT Service Management, you will be leveraging the Now LLM to power the features.
- Is Now Assist for ITSM available for all ITSM subscriptions?
-
No. Now Assist for ITSM is a new SKU that customers can upgrade to called ITSM Pro Plus or Enterprise Plus. Speak with your ServiceNow account team to learn more.
-
- What are the platform features that are included in ITSM Pro+ and Enterprise+
-
Customers will be able to leverage Now Assist Admin, Now Assist Panel, and Now Assist in AI Search and Now Assist in Virtual Agent.
-
- 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.
-
- 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).
- 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.
- Does the Now Assist Admin Analytics page show how many “Assists” were consumed?
- No, Assists will show in Subscription Management
Data Security
- 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.
- 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.
General Questions
- Is Now Assist functionality available on other modules such as Legal, HR Service Delivery too?
-
Now Assist functionality is also available for other products like HR, CSM, ITOM and Creator.
-
- How can a customer evaluate Now Assist prior to purchase?
- Ask your ServiceNow account team about an evaluation instance.
- Will Now Assist in AI Search need model training as a prerequisite
- No, Now Assist in AI Search works on pre-trained model and will work out of the box.
- Will customers have access to the Now LLM to develop custom Now Assist skills?
-
Today customers do not have access to the model on its own, but a capability is planned for the H2 2024 timeframe to enable customers to create net-new Now Assist skills with prompt editability.
-
- What is the difference between Genius Results within AI Search and answers generated by Now Assist?
- Genius result is the top result returned by AI search based on confidence score. Now Assist leverages AI Search behind the scenes applying AI capabilities on top of it to generate the answer.
- If a chat is conducted through ServiceNow Sidebar and Microsoft Teams, is the summarization and resolution notes generation functionality available?
-
Yes – the transcript will need to be imported - this is current functionality with the ServiceNow integration with Microsoft Teams - into the incident record for summarization and resolution notes generation.
-
- Can I change the configuration variable for chat summarization?
- No, it is not configurable, like Record Summarization. We take the chat transcript and send it for summarization.
- Can we use Now LLM for one feature and Azure Open AI for another feature?
- ServiceNow determines the provider for each feature.
- Are we supporting Now Assist for Search only for Knowledge Bases now?
- Q&A functionality works only over KB Knowledge and child tables and only for English. Other sources for Q&A will be prioritized over time.
- What follow-up questions are we allowing users to ask on the Now Assist panel?
- We are supporting some basic follow-up questions like making it shorter, making it longer, or changing the tone to formal. If follow-up is enabled, customer data is sent to Azure Open AI. Customers will have the choice to disable in Now Assist Admin
Additional Resources
Now Assist for ITSM: Quick Start Guide
Product Documentation
Hi @Jeff Fox, may I know if we need to have a separate resource of OpenAI or Azure OpenAI to get the Now Assist capabilities to work? I was trying to test the flow ServiceNow has in this youtube video (Link), but since I don't have the connection configured as I don't have Azure OpenAI resource, the testing failed with error message "Unable to load connection with alias ID: xxx".
I thought we could just use the Now LLM to get the Now Assist to work, but apparently no? Your clarification is truly appreciated, thank you!
