Admins, Take the Wheel: Zurich Makes AI Safe to Scale

[Laszlo Balla]

ServiceNow Admins sit at the crossroads of innovation and stability. While users demand sleek experiences, developers push faster releases, and execs chase AI outcomes, it’s admins who keep the platform secure, compliant, and upgrade-ready. The Zurich release is built for your new reality. It gives admins the tools to activate and govern AI responsibly, enforce change discipline, and reduce manual firefighting so you can say “yes” to AI without losing control. 

The world shifted under your feet 

There is a tidal wave of AI demand and it’s colliding with the hard realities of governance. Executives want outcomes yesterday and admins are left to evaluate which innovations are real, which are hype, and how to make them safe, auditable, and cost-controlled. And that’s on top of the long-term demands like shinier UX and, yes, dark mode. If you keep operating like it’s 2022, with ad hoc releases, limited telemetry, and “we will figure out governance later,” you will bleed time on rework and risk. 

Zurich marks an inflection point: more automation for change, admin consoles that put AI under your control, and practical UX improvements that reduce friction. 

Level up with AI while protecting what matters  

If the ground rules have changed, then your day-to-day reality has too. Admins now live in the tension between endless requests for new capabilities and the constant responsibility to keep the platform safe, reliable, and compliant. It is a demanding balance that can feel impossible to maintain. 

Zurich gives you the tools to hold that balance with confidence. Imagine your week with the following enhancements: 

• Release pipelines that enforce policies before bad changes reach production. No more heroics on Friday night. 

• An admin console to activate, monitor, and govern AI usage and cost from one place. Put AI to work and show it is under control. 

• Search you can actually tune, with dashboards for relevance and trends. Fewer “can’t find it” tickets and more self-service deflection. 

• A modern theme (Coral) with a dark variant that does not require hacks, and the ability to apply your organization’s custom fonts. Less eye strain for power users combined with cleaner adoption. 

• Clear deprecation signals (like Service Creator) so you can plan migrations on your schedule instead of during crisis week. 

This is the admin-first reality in Zurich. 

Four practical moves to make now 

1. Centralize AI activation and control 
   With the Now Assist Admin Console, you activate capabilities, set guardrails, and monitor usage and outcomes all from one place. This is not just about turning everything on; it is about making AI accountable. See who is using what, how often, and with what result, so you can scale what works and shut down what does not. 
   
   Zurich also strengthens AI Control Tower, giving you broader visibility across your AI landscape. From a single dashboard you can track adoption, measure outcomes, and ensure governance policies are being followed. Together, the Console and Control Tower let you put AI to work while proving it is safe, auditable, and worth the investment. 
   
   What you unlock: Clear visibility into AI usage and costs, with policy-backed approvals and enterprise-level governance instead of ad hoc exceptions.  
   
   
   
2. Standardize your change pipeline with Release Ops 
   In Zurich, Release Ops gives you structured pipelines, automated playbooks, and policy gates that force quality early, exactly where it’s the most cost effective and safest. Map your common release paths, add the checks you already do manually (linting, tests, peer review), and share live status with stakeholders. 
   
   What you unlock: Fewer failed deployments and less noise from your Change Advisory Board (CAB) because the platform enforces your gates. 
   
   
   
   
3. Make search a managed service, not a mystery 
   Zurich’s AI Search updates add dashboards, metrics, and tuning controls. Start with the top failure modes: low click-through queries, zero-result queries, and noisy synonyms. Establish a monthly “search tune-up” and publish before/after. 
   
   What you unlock: Fewer "I couldn’t find it" tickets and higher ticket deflection. 
   
   
   
   
4. Use Theme Builder to modernize without breaking upgrades 
   Zurich adds the Coral theme and lets you upload up to 10 custom fonts in Theme Builder. Align the look-and-feel with your brand without spaghetti CSS that explodes at upgrade time. Validate accessibility and readability in sub-prod, then apply during your normal upgrade cycle. 
   
   What you unlock: Cleaner, consistent UX and fewer fragile UI overrides to maintain. 
   

What good looks like in practice 

With Zurich, the definition of “good” shifts. It’s no longer just about keeping the lights on, but also about showing you can scale fast without impeding innovation. 

 Within a single sprint after upgrading, you can demonstrate tangible outcomes that reduce noise, tighten governance, and give leadership confidence that the platform is in capable hands. These aren’t long-term aspirations; they’re sprint-level achievements that put you in the hero’s seat. 

Within the first sprint post-upgrade, you can: 

• Map two release paths into Release Ops (“standard change” and “hotfix”) with automated gates for the checks your CAB expects. 

• Enable basic policies and turn usage reporting into a weekly snapshot for leadership with the Now Assist Admin Console and AI Control Tower. 

• Tune AI Search to create a backlog of synonym fixes and content gaps while tracking zero-result queries, which are improving. 

• Evaluate Coral and custom fonts in Theme Builder, confirm accessibility, apply updates in production, and reduce CSS overrides to lower future upgrade risk. 

• Build a deprecation tracker and assign owners for Zurich-listed items (including Service Creator and plugin changes) with target migration dates. 

That’s not theory. It’s a concrete, admin-led blueprint that shows value in days, not quarters. 

Set the pace 

Admins define the safety rails that make velocity possible. Zurich gives you resources that reward discipline: enforceable pipelines, observable AI, tunable search, modern UX, and clear deprecation paths. You can give teams the freedom to experiment freely, knowing the guardrails are in place for them to do so safely. You're unleashing innovation without adding undue risk. 

Your next move is simple: start your Zurich upgrade plan today.