Platform Academy - July 17th, 2025 - Building workflows to be used as tools in AI Agents

[Lisa Holenstein]

The ServiceNow Platform Academy recently featured a packed session exploring how AI agents and workflow automation work hand-in-hand. Victor and Lisa shared a comprehensive look at designing intelligent agents that can reason, decide, and act — all while staying compliant and scalable.

Agents meet workflows

AI agents help automate high-variability tasks, while deterministic workflows (like subflows, flow actions, and playbooks) handle predictable processes. Combining them means your agents can work autonomously but still follow strict business rules when needed.

Design for reliability

The speakers stressed the importance of:

• Clear, structured agent instructions.
• Validation gates to check success criteria before moving on.
• Defining fallback paths if something goes wrong.
• Modular tools like subflows and actions to reduce duplication and keep maintenance easy.

Real demo: From universal request to ticket creation

Victor demoed an AI agent that analyzes a universal request’s details, decides if it’s HR or IT-related, and creates the correct record. Lisa showed how the subflow processes inputs, creates the record, and passes outputs back to the agent, ensuring traceability and reliability.

Best practices & next steps

• Start simple; keep logic modular.
• Use decision tables to separate business rules from flows.
• Always test thoroughly with real data.
• Leverage existing integrations and the workflow data fabric.

As enterprise automation scales, this combination of AI flexibility and workflow rigor makes it easier to manage complexity without sacrificing reliability.

You can explore hands-on labs (from CreatorCon) and deeper enablement content on Now Learning or the ServiceNow Community.

Resources

• Visit ServiceNow University for the Learning Patch on Now Assist AI Agents
• The full CreatorCon Lab is available on ServiceNow University: CCL1054-K25 - Lab: Build an AI Agent that can reason and take action to automate your organization
• Visit our Now Assist Community Forum for more tips and best practices – https://sn.works/ai
• ServiceNow Documentation – https://servicenow.com/docs
• Getting Started with Flows - https://sn.works/CoE/StartFlow