This guide walks you through everything you need: infrastructure requirements, plugin installations, instance configuration, and your first desktop action. Follow these steps in order and you will be set up to automate UI-based tasks without writing a single line of code.
Pre-requisite Set-up for Agentic Desktop
Infrastructure: Start by ensuring your machine meets the following requirements
- Use Windows 10 or 11 laptop / Windows server 2022 (or higher) VM
- Below are the 2 prerequisite runtimes to run our application, install both from below links .NET 9.0 runtime v9.0.10, .NET 9 Desktop Runtime v9.0.10
- The logged-in Windows user should have admin access on the laptop/VM
- Add your Windows login username as Remote User by following the process below: (check if it doesn’t exist already)
- Open System Properties:
- Press Windows + R, type sysdm.cpl, and press Enter.
- Go to the Remote tab:
- Click on the Remote tab.
- Allow Remote Desktop:
- Under Remote Desktop, make sure “Allow remote connections to this computer” is selected.
- If there is an option called “Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication”, you can leave it checked for security.
- Select Users:
- Click on Select Users... button.
- Add Users:
- In the dialog that opens, click Add...
- Type the username of the person you want to add (e.g., DOMAIN\username or just username for local accounts).
- Click Check Names to verify.
- Click OK to add the user.
- Click OK on all windows to apply the changes.
Instance:
- Should be on YP11+ or ZP4+ glide
Agentic Desktop Plugins Installation details:
- Agentic Desktop (x.0.0) & Agentic Desktop Core (x.0.0) Apps are auto installed via Now Assist for Platform (xx.0.0)
Users:
Should have below users created
- 1 user with sn_aia.admin role
- 1 user with now_assist _panel_user role
Activate AI Search:
- In the Filter Navigator, navigate to: AI Search → AI Search Status
- If AI Search is not enabled, Click on “Request AI Search” button.
- Once the request is submitted, wait until it is ready and activated.
Enable Now Assist for Panel - Platform (NAP)on instance:
- In the Filter Navigator, navigate to: Conversational Interfaces → Assistants
- Select Now Assist for Panel - Platform(default) option
- Under Display experience section, Add agent experience as “Unified Navigation app shell”.
- Other than the above section, leave all the sections with default selected values.
- In the Review section, click on Save and Activate
- This will enable NAP on instance.
Agentic Desktop Downloads:
- Log in as a user with the sn_aia.admin or now_assist_panel_user role.
- In the Filter Navigator, navigate to: All → Agentic Desktop → Downloads.
- Available for Windows operating system.
- Click the Download icon to download directly,
- Click the Copy icon to copy the download URL.
- Install above Agentic Desktop software (keep hitting ‘Next’ whenever prompted until completion)
- After installing Agentic Desktop, log in to the Agentic Desktop using a user account that has the sn_aia.admin role.
- Create a sample desktop action, then Save and Activate it.
- You can now use this desktop action within your AI Agent and begin testing through AI Agent Studio – Testing / Now Assist Panel.
Your First Desktop Action
After installation, log in to Agentic Desktop using an account with the sn_aia.admin role. Create a sample desktop action <Blog on step by step creation of desktop action >. You can now add this desktop action to an AI Agent and begin testing.
You are ready to go. With your environment configured and your first action live, you have everything in place to start building intelligent desktop automation on the ServiceNow AI Platform. The next step is exploring how to design more complex workflows and connect desktop actions to your AI agents for end-to-end execution.
To build a strong foundation before diving deeper, we recommend completing the Agentic Desktop Fundamentals course available on ServiceNow University. It covers the core concepts, architecture, and hands-on essentials you need to get the most out of the Agentic Desktop platform.
