How Does Virtual Agent with Now Assist Learn?

[Geraldina Valer]

Hi Community,

We recently implemented Now Assist for Virtual Agent in our ServiceNow instance, and our users have started using it.

However, some users have expressed concerns that the assistant does not seem to improve over time. They feel that it provides the same answers repeatedly and that they need to re-explain the same information when asking similar questions in different sessions.

We would like to better understand the expected behavior of Now Assist for Virtual Agent.

Does Now Assist learn from user interactions over time?
Does it retain information from previous conversations?
Are there any specific configurations or features that need to be enabled to improve its responses?
What are the main limitations regarding learning and memory?

We would appreciate any guidance or best practices from organizations that have already implemented this solution.

Thank you in advance for your help. 🙂

[Tanushree Maiti]

Hi @Geraldina Valer 

Check  Now Assist FAQs. 

"

I'm getting different results between Now Assist in Virtual Agent and Now Assist in Search in portal. How do I resolve this?

First, ensure that your Now Assist plugins are up to date for your instance. Re-index AI Search sources in case it's a search issue.

Then, ensure that the search profile for the Virtual Agent is the search as the search profile for the portal (configured in Portals > Search Application).

If you like, you can also navigate to the Now Assist in VA setup page > Assistants > Information Sources, and click “Copy existing configuration” to copy over an existing search profile from portal to the Virtual Agent. "

[Geraldina Valer]

Hi, Thank you for sharing the article.

I reviewed the documentation, but I could not find any information explaining whether Now Assist for Virtual Agent learns from user interactions over time or retains information from previous conversations to improve future responses.

[rpriyadarshy]

@Geraldina Valer Now Assist for VA do not Learn on its own over the time . If You read the ServiceNow Docs there is a concept of Short Term Memory and Long Term Memory for AI Agents not for NAVA unless you call an AI Agent from NAVA.

Regards

RP

[Geraldina Valer]

Hi Community,

I reviewed the followings articles:

1) 

https://www.servicenow.com/community/employee-center-articles/now-assist-for-employee-center-an-intr...

Based on my understanding, I could not find any indication that Now Assist for Virtual Agent:

Automatically learns from user conversations.
Changes its behavior based on previous chats.
Creates a permanent memory of information provided by users.
Remembers information from past conversations and uses it in future sessions.
From the article, my understanding is that Now Assist does the following:

Uses generative AI models to answer questions.
Retrieves information from Knowledge Base articles, Catalog Items, AI Search, and connected external systems.
Generates synthesized responses based on those sources.
Maintains context within an active conversation.
It appears to have temporary memory during the current conversation. However, I could not find evidence that this context is retained after the conversation ends or reused in future sessions.

2)

https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/it-service-management/now-assist-for-it-service-management-itsm/no...

My interpretation is that this improvement happens at the overall ServiceNow platform level, rather than enabling Now Assist to learn from conversations within a specific customer instance or remember information from previous user interactions.

"Data collection
ServiceNow collects and uses the inputs, outputs, and edits to outputs of this application to develop and improve ServiceNow technologies including ServiceNow models and AI products. In addition, this application will collect incident data (for Incident Assist and Knowledge Assist) and chat transcripts (for Chat Assist). Customers can opt out of future data collection at any time, as described in the Now Assist Opt-Out page."