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2 hours ago
Accelerating Agent Responses with Now Assist’s Activity Response Generation
When customer service or IT tier agents face complex cases with dozens of updates, they spend valuable time scrolling through activity streams to understand the case history before crafting appropriate responses. This context-switching delays responses and creates inconsistent handoffs between agents.
Now Assist’s Activity Response Generation solves this by analyzing the entire history of the case via the activity stream and suggests contextually appropriate responses for agent based on that specific moment. Note: this feature requires manual configuration as of February 2026 with plans for a guided setup in future releases.
Common Use Cases for Activity Response Generation
Step by Step Video Implementation
Appendix: Resources & Reference Links
Outcomes of this Guide
After following this guide, you will:
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Understand how Activity Response Generation improves agent efficiency (ex. Customer Service Management)
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Configure the Activity Response Generation skill and the Now Assist context menu
Common Use Cases for Activity Response Generation
The following are common scenarios in which the Activity Response Generation will simplify all agent efforts:
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Agent handoff - When transferring a ticket between agents, quickly summarize all actions taken so the receiving agent has full context without reading through the entire history
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Customer status updates - Send professional acknowledgments when a customer submits information, letting them know you received it and are working on their issue
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Proactive follow-ups - Send reminder messages to customers or colleagues when waiting on information or action items
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Ticket communications - Rapidly respond to multiple customers with full context without sacrificing professionalism
Step-by-Step Video Implementation
Prerequisites include (note: always try to install the latest version):
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ServiceNow release: Zurich patch 4 or higher
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Now Assist Admin Console: store app latest version 7.0.8 as of Feb 2026
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Now Assist for Platform: store app version 10.0.3 or above
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Platform AI Agents and Skills: store app version 10.9.7 or higher
00:00: This tutorial guides you through setting up ServiceNow's activity response generation skill aimed at accelerating agent response time through advanced automation with Now Assist.
00:12: You will learn how to activate the activity response generation skill, configure its availability within the Now Assist context menu, and validate the skill within the Service Operations Workspace.
00:30: Before starting, you should ensure you are in the correct scope by selecting the globe icon at the top right and ensuring "Now Assist
00:39: for IT Service Management" is selected
00:43: Navigate to the Now Assist admin by typing "now assist"
00:48: Click on the Skills module within the Now Assist Admin application
00:54: From there, you're going to navigate to the Technology section and select ITSM
01:01: This section contains all out of box ITSM skills.
01:06: Find the Incident activity response generation skill and then click Activate.
01:12: The skill will auto populate with the Incident table and a few key fields to be used as the inputs to the activity response skill
01:22: You can click save and continue.
01:25: You can define when the skill will be available like for example only for Priority 1 incidents but for this example, we will keep it at always available
01:37: Click save and continue
01:40: To limit this skill, you may select the specific ServiceNow roles that may use it. For this example, we will allow ITIL role users to use this skill. Then click Save and Continue
01:53: In order for this skill to be used within a Workspace, click the toggle of In Product and click Save and Continue
02:03: Finally you will click Activate in the summary screen for the Activity response generation skill to be enabled
02:10: Once the skill is active, you will also need to ensure it is available within the Now Assist context menu which will be the sparkle icon used to invoke the skill. Click go to Now Assist Context Menu
02:25: In this section, you'll configure the Additional Comments and Work Notes fields so the Now Assist context menu appears there for the Activity Response skill.
02:35: There will be two tabs: one for Work Notes and one for Additional Comments. The actions will define what can be selected when the sparkle icon is selected. In this case: post response and summarize actions taken.
02:51: The refinement actions will define how to modify the initial response to be in the tone that you choose
02:59: Here are how the refinement actions will look like
03:04: Configuring the actions and refinement actions will need to be repeated for the additional comments tab
03:11: For today's demo, we will keep all default actions
03:16: Click save and continue
03:19: By default we will allow ITIL users to access the now assist context menu. Click save and continue
03:27: Ensure that the toggle is selected in the in product desktop. Then click save and continue
03:35: Finally we will select done to complete the now assist context menu configurations
03:41: To test the configurations,
03:44: navigate to the service operations workspace.
03:48: We're going to select an incident list
03:52: We're going to click into an individual incident.
03:56: And to double check it. We simply need to click right here into the work notes.
04:02: Once you see the sparkle icon, you will be able to select the previously configured actions which will generate a response so that an agent can leverage AI in order to speed their incident resolutions
04:19: You have successfully configured the activity response generation skill in servicenow using now assist, this includes activating the skill.
04:29: Setting. Availability customizing experience actions.
04:34: In verifying the setup within the service operations, workspace, for Incident Management.
