Enable seamless cross-organizational cooperation for the digital AI Agent workforce. Leverage an ecosystem of agent interoperability with A2A. Equip ServiceNow AI Agents with best-of-breed external tools via MCP, expanding AI's reach and avoiding redundancy.
Available in the Zurich Patch 4 release -
- ServiceNow AI Agent as MCP client - Add and connect to MCP servers to utilize external tools in your ServiceNow AI Agents.
- Now Assist MCP server - Provide Now Assist skills and custom-built skills as tools for any external AI Agent.
- A2A Protocol support - enable communication and context sharing between Now Assist AI Agents and other external AI Agents.
Prerequisites:
- Now Assist SKU (Pro Plus, Enterprise Plus)
- Zurich Patch 4+, Yokohama Patch 11+ recommended.
- Latest AI Agents store app, version 6.x+
- Latest Model Context Protocol Client store app, version 1.1+
What is MCP?
According to the official MCP website: "MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open-source standard for connecting AI applications to external systems.Using MCP, AI applications like Claude or ChatGPT can connect to data sources (e.g. local files, databases), tools (e.g. search engines, calculators) and workflows (e.g. specialized prompts)—enabling them to access key information and perform tasks."
MCP Client
Manage MCP servers in AI Agent Studio > Settings
ServiceNow AI Agent calling a financial dataset tool via the "MCP" tool in AI Agent Studio
MCP Server
Create your own MCP server via your Now Assist instance, set up authentication, and select skills to be exposed as tools. Oauth is required.
Monitoring and reporting dashboards are also available so that you can track usage.
MCP FAQs and Troubleshooting (as of the Zurich Patch 4 release):
1. What SKUs and pricing is involved with MCP?
Currently, only a Now Assist SKU is required. Since MCP is an AI Agent tool, it is considered an action and follows the action-based consumption model in terms of number of assists. Now Assist skills exposed as tools via the MCP server will consume their usual number of assists when invoked plus 1 assist.
2. What authentication options are available for connecting to MCP servers?
Authless, API key, and Oauth 2.1
3. Is MCP resources and prompts supported?
Not at this time but is on the roadmap (Safe Harbor applies).
4. What MCP transport options are supported.
Streamable HTTP (and SSE). Stdio is not supported.
- ServiceNow can leverage MCP Streamable HTTP in non-streaming mode for a single “application/json” response type
- Optionally, Server-Sent Events (SSE) in Streamable HTTP could be leveraged for “text/event-stream” response types
5. I've run into an issue while attempting to add and connect to an MCP server.
Check that your Connection and Credential records are configured as expected. If you're using Oauth, don't forget to request an Oauth token (also check its expiration date) in the Credential record. Be sure you've pasted the correct API key and that your redirect URL matches exactly.
6. What protocol version of MCP is currently supported?
2025-06-18
7. Do you support local MCP servers?
No, only remote servers.
8. Is there a sample MCP server I can use to try out the ServiceNow MCP client?
For an easy to connect MCP server, see Microsoft Learn's MCP server: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/support/mcp
To learn more about MCP, visit the official documentation: https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/getting-started/intro
See this Community article on example MCP servers to try out with your Now Assist AI Agents: https://www.servicenow.com/community/now-assist-articles/try-the-now-assist-ai-agent-mcp-client-with...
A2A support
Now Assist AI Agents do not act in a bubble. With A2A protocol support, your Now Assist AI Agents can share data, context, and action to collaborate on objectives. Now Assist AI Agents can act as either the primary (orchestrating) agent that calls upon external agents; or it can act as a secondary (invoked) agent to an external AI Agent.
To add an external agent to AI Agent Studio, create an AI Agent of type = 'External', and add a Provider record with a related Connection & Credential alias record containing the Agent Card url. The external agent can then be discovered and used in an agentic workflow or with other AI Agents.
See this article for how to set up authentication when Now Assist AI Agents is a secondary (invoked) agent, using Google Vertex as an example: https://www.servicenow.com/community/now-assist-articles/authentication-for-google-a2a-servicenow-as...
A2A FAQs and Troubleshooting (as of the Zurich Patch 4 release)
1. What is the A2A protocol?
The A2A protocol was released by Google, providing a standardized approach for agents to interact with. See Google’s official documentation on the protocol here - https://a2a-protocol.org/latest/topics/what-is-a2a/
2. What other external platforms support A2A?
Google Vertex AI, AWS Bedrock, and Microsoft Azure AI Foundry support A2A protocol. ServiceNow has successfully tested Google Vertex AI with the A2A protocol for stability.
3. Which protocol version is supported?
As of the December '25 release, ServiceNow supports and recommends v0.3 of the A2A protocol.
4. What security scheme does A2A use?
Oauth2.0 or API key. Oauth2.1 support is coming soon.
5. What instance version is required to use A2A?
Zurich Patch 4, Yokohama Patch 11
6. What SKU do I need to use A2A? How does it consume assists?
Any Pro Plus/Enterprise SKU with Now Assist, except Creator. When a Now Assist AI Agent is invoked from another external agent, the Now Assist AI Agent will consume the usual number of assists based on number of tools. An external agent being invoked by Now Assist does not consume assists.
7. Is HTTP streaming supported?
Not at this time; it is on the roadmap. HTTP is supported as a transport layer.
8. Do we support parallel tasking?
Not at this time.
9. What are some further resources I can review?
Google Resources
- Open Protocol: https://a2a-protocol.org/latest/
- A2A Release: https://developers.googleblog.com/en/a2a-a-new-era-of-agent-interoperability/
Community Enablement
- Architecture Guide: https://medium.com/@anil.jain.baba/agentic-mcp-and-a2a-architecture-a-comprehensive-guide-0ddf4359e1...
- Architecture and Communication: https://medium.com/genusoftechnology/architecting-the-future-a-deep-dive-into-googles-adk-and-a2a-fo...
10. Help, my external AI Agent isn’t being discovered?
If it’s a ServiceNow AI Agent that is a secondary agent that needs to be discovered, ensure that the “discoverable” flag is checked.
If you are bringing an external agent from outside ServiceNow, make sure that the Agent Card URL is accurate and includes ‘/well_known/agent_json’.
