Platform Academy June 4th - Maximize Your Value from Dynamic Guidance

Paty Montesinos

Maximize Your Value from Dynamic Guidance — Platform Academy Recap

Overview

At our most recent Platform Academy session, Product Manager Mudit Khandelwal and Outbound Product Manager Paty Montesinos walked us through Dynamic Guidance — ServiceNow's voice-native, AI-powered assistant built directly into the platform. No new tab. No searching. No waiting on a colleague.

Here's a full recap — including both demos from the session and answers to every question attendees asked.

Family Release: Zurich Patch 9

GA Release: April 2026

Role Required: sn_dyn_guidance_user

Prerequisite: Now Assist for Platform

Why Dynamic Guidance Exists: The Adoption Problem

Before diving in, Paty grounded us in the problem Dynamic Guidance is designed to solve. The numbers are stark:

$10.9M

Annual loss per 1,000-person company from poor software adoption

52.7%

Of SaaS licenses purchased are wasted or never used

80%

Of enterprise software features are never touched by employees

The root cause isn't that help doesn't exist — it's that help is fragmented. Product docs, community forums, KB articles, YouTube videos, release notes — they're all in different places, none of them inside your instance at the moment you actually need them.

Dynamic Guidance puts the answer where the work happens.

What Is Dynamic Guidance?

Dynamic Guidance is a voice-native AI assistant built into the ServiceNow platform. It lives in the Help Center panel on any instance page. You activate it, speak your question naturally, and it:

Hears what you ask
Sees your current screen
Walks you through each step — without ever leaving the page

Think of it as the colleague who swivels their chair, looks at your screen, and guides you through exactly what you're trying to do — except available at 2 AM, never sighing when you ask the same question twice, and drawing on all of ServiceNow's official product documentation plus your organization's own KB articles and SharePoint content.

Dynamic Guidance is useful across three interaction types:

Type	When It Helps
Walkthroughs	Learning a new process step by step, with the assistant waiting for you to complete each step before moving on
Instructions	You know roughly what to do but can't remember the exact steps or fields
Information	You're staring at a field, button, or page and need context on what it means or which option to pick

Demo 1: HR Admin Walkthrough — Creating an Employee Form

The first demo followed Madhu, an HR Admin who needs to create a new employee form to attach to HR cases — something he's never done before.

Madhu: I want to create an employee form to be attached on my HR cases. How can I do that?

Dynamic Guidance: To create an employee form for HR cases, you'll first need to navigate to HR Administration, then Employee Form. Are you ready for the next step?

Madhu: I see a Form Designer button at the top and at the bottom — are they the same? Should I click any of these?

Dynamic Guidance: Yes, they are the same. You can click the Form Designer button at the top.

Dynamic Guidance walked Madhu through every step: navigating to HR Administration, clicking New, filling in the name and description, submitting, opening Form Designer, building the form by dragging and dropping questions, saving and publishing, and finally attaching the form to an HR task using the "Collect Employee Input" task type.

Key differentiator vs. a guided tour: A static guided tour follows a scripted click path. Dynamic Guidance responded to where Madhu actually was on screen, answered his real question mid-process, and waited for him to complete each step before proceeding.

Takeaway for your org: Any new process you roll out — onboarding workflows, HR case types, admin procedures — benefits immediately from Dynamic Guidance once the process is documented. No custom tours to build.

Demo 2: ITSM Agent Getting Information — Major Incident Setup

The second demo followed Amos, an IT Service Management agent who needs to understand the major incident communication process so he can brief his admin — but Amos isn't the admin himself.

Amos: We need to automatically notify employees whenever there's a major outage. Does ServiceNow support this out of the box?

Dynamic Guidance: Yes. ServiceNow does have out-of-the-box capabilities for notifying employees during outages, through the Major Incident Management module. Are you interested in setting this up for incidents or event management?

Amos: I'm not the admin — I just need to understand what's involved so I can brief my admin on what to configure.

Dynamic Guidance: You'll want to provide your admin with the specific conditions that define a major incident — such as priority or impacted services — clarify who should be notified and how, and confirm they can find the setup under Major Incident Management in the menu.

Amos: Can you give me one quick summary of everything I have to bring to the admin?

Dynamic Guidance: To summarize: (1) Confirm the Major Incident Management plugin is active. (2) Go to Communication Plans under Major Incident Administration. (3) Create a new plan tied to the major incident promotion trigger. (4) You'll provide the recipient audience, the message template content, and the timing rule.

Key differentiator: Dynamic Guidance adapted its guidance based on Amos's actual role and goal. It didn't just answer the first question — it understood the context and gave him exactly what he needed to take action.

Takeaway for your org: Dynamic Guidance works for non-admin users too. Anyone who needs to understand a process, gather information, or prepare a handoff can use it — not just the people doing the configuration.

Measuring Adoption: How to Know If It's Working

Once Dynamic Guidance is live, you can track usage directly in Platform Analytics → Usage Insights (formerly User Experience Analytics, updated to this name in the Australia release).

Navigate to All → Platform Analytics → Usage Insights (or search it in the filter navigator)
Open the Events section in the left navigation panel
Search or filter by Event Name: Click Start For Dynamic Guidance
View counts over time; filter by date, user type, country, or application

You'll see total occurrences, active users, daily/weekly/monthly trends, and breakdowns by country, user type, and application.

For transcripts: Navigate to the sys_generative_ai_log table and filter the Definition field for "Dynamic Guidance." You'll see every interaction with prompts and responses — useful for understanding what topics users are seeking guidance on. Note: voice audio is not recorded or stored. Only the text transcript is available.

FAQ: Every Question from the Session (and More)

Getting Started

Q: Is Dynamic Guidance free?

Dynamic Guidance does not cost anything beyond your existing Now Assist entitlement. You are not charged assists for Dynamic Guidance sessions — usage doesn't accumulate against your assist totals. However, you do need Now Assist for Platform installed on your instance, which requires a licensed SKU. If you're unsure whether your current SKU includes it, check with your account executive.

Q: What are the technical requirements to use Dynamic Guidance?

You need to be on Zurich Patch 9 or later (GA as of April 2026). Now Assist for Platform must be installed. Dynamic Guidance is available on the Next Experience (Polaris) UI only — it is not available on the Classic UI. Usage tracking in Usage Insights requires Yokohama or later with UXA/ADCV3 enabled.

Q: Can Dynamic Guidance be tested in a PDI (Personal Developer Instance)?

Not currently. Dynamic Guidance is not available in personal developer instances at this time. You can test it in a sub-production or developer instance within your organization. The team is working to expand availability.

Q: Is Now Assist for Platform different from ITSM, HR, and other workflow-specific Now Assist SKUs?

Now Assist for Platform is an additional plugin bundled within the Now Assist (rebranded as "Auto") AI SKUs. If your workflow SKU (ITSM, HRSD, etc.) includes the AI package, you likely already have what you need. Confirm with your account executive to be sure.

How It Works

Q: Where does Dynamic Guidance get its information?

Out of the box, Dynamic Guidance references all of ServiceNow's official product documentation at docs.servicenow.com, including release notes. It can also be configured to connect to your own internal sources — KB articles on your instance, SharePoint sites, custom internal documentation, and third-party repositories — through the XCC configuration (External Content Connector). No code changes are required to plug in additional sources.

Q: Is Dynamic Guidance aware of only out-of-the-box form views, or can it handle customizations?

Out of the box, it references ServiceNow product documentation. If you have made customizations — custom applications, custom workspaces, modified forms — Dynamic Guidance can reference those too, as long as they are documented in a connected source (your internal KB, SharePoint, etc.). Document your customizations and connect those sources via the XCC configuration, and Dynamic Guidance will be able to guide users through them.

Q: Does Dynamic Guidance search the ServiceNow Community?

Not currently. The ServiceNow Community is not a connected source at this time, but it is on the product roadmap.

Q: Is it voice only, or can users type their questions?

The current interaction model is voice-based. There is a visible transcript of the conversation, but users cannot type questions into Dynamic Guidance directly. The design is intentional: Dynamic Guidance is screen-aware and provides real-time, step-by-step spoken guidance — more like a colleague watching your screen than a traditional chatbot. Text-based chat is available through Now Assist separately. Customer feedback about a hybrid type-and-speak input option has been noted by the product team.

Q: Can Dynamic Guidance see my screen?

Yes. Dynamic Guidance has access to what is currently displayed on your screen. This is what enables it to give contextual guidance — recognizing which form or page you're on and tailoring instructions to your exact situation.

Q: Does it record or store my voice?

No. Voice audio is not recorded or stored. Transcripts of the interaction (text prompts and responses) are stored and accessible via the sys_generative_ai_log table for admins to review.

Capabilities and Limitations

Q: Can Dynamic Guidance help me understand what changed between ServiceNow releases or after a plugin upgrade?

Yes. Because Dynamic Guidance has access to docs.servicenow.com including release notes, it can explain what changed from one release to another when asked directly. This is particularly useful for HAM/SAM teams, ITSM teams, and others who need to understand what a plugin upgrade introduced without manually reviewing documentation.

Q: Can I ask Dynamic Guidance to triage an issue or figure out the root cause of a problem on my instance?

No. Dynamic Guidance is a guidance and navigation tool — it does not scan your instance data, live records, or tables to diagnose issues. It can tell you what a process should look like based on documentation and walk you through steps, but it cannot say "here's what's wrong with your instance right now."

Q: Will it suggest what type of script to write (client script, UI policy, JavaScript)?

No. Script and code suggestions are use cases for ServiceNow's build agents and other AI coding tools. Dynamic Guidance focuses on process navigation and out-of-the-box platform guidance, not code generation.

Q: Can Dynamic Guidance help users create data visualizations or dashboards?

Yes — this is a strong use case. It can walk users through creating a new visualization, configuring an out-of-the-box dashboard, adding metrics to a custom dashboard, and understanding what various dashboard options do.

Q: Can it answer questions about subscription implications or platform performance issues?

No. Questions about diagnosing performance, identifying root causes, or interpreting subscription and licensing implications are outside Dynamic Guidance's current scope. It is built for how-to guidance, navigation, and process explanations.

Q: Is Dynamic Guidance available on mobile?

Not currently, and it is not in the near-term roadmap.

Q: Is Dynamic Guidance available on the external customer-facing portal (for CSM use cases)?

No. Dynamic Guidance is internal-facing only — available to agents, admins, and implementers within the platform. It is not available on external customer portals at this time.

Setup and Administration

Q: What role do users need to access Dynamic Guidance?

Users need the sn_dyn_guidance_user role (also referenced as sn_dynamic_guidance_user). Admins must assign this role before users can see and activate Dynamic Guidance from the Help Center. A roadmap item is in progress to automatically assign this role to admins, but for now it must be assigned manually.

Q: Dynamic Guidance is installed on my instance but I don't see it in the Help Center. What should I do?

The most common cause is the missing role. Confirm with your admin that the sn_dyn_guidance_user role has been assigned to your account. Once assigned, the option should appear in the Help Center panel.

Q: How do I connect my internal SharePoint or KB articles as a content source?

You configure this through the XCC (External Content Connector) configuration in your instance. There is no code change required — it is configuration-driven. Refer to the "Adding Custom Sources" documentation linked in the Resources section below for step-by-step setup instructions.

Business Value and Use Cases

Q: Is this essentially a way to avoid flipping windows to the docs site?

Yes — and more. One key value is centralizing guidance so users don't have to leave the platform to find answers. Beyond that, Dynamic Guidance actively walks users through tasks in real time with screen awareness, rather than just surfacing a link or page for them to read independently.

Q: What does this mean for our knowledge base process?

Dynamic Guidance's effectiveness for custom processes is directly tied to the quality of your documentation. The better your KB articles and internal process docs, the better Dynamic Guidance can guide users through customized flows. For many organizations, this creates a valuable forcing function to invest in and maintain internal documentation.

Q: Could this help with new employee onboarding?

Absolutely. For new hires learning ServiceNow — whether as agents, admins, or requestors — Dynamic Guidance lets them ask questions at any time without interrupting experienced teammates. It maintains conversational context across a session and is available 24/7. The biggest remaining dependency is on documented processes: if your onboarding process is documented in a KB article, SharePoint page, or custom guide, Dynamic Guidance can walk new hires through it.

Q: Does this mean we no longer need to build guided tours?

Dynamic Guidance doesn't replace guided tours — it complements them. Guided tours are scripted click paths useful for structured, linear onboarding. Dynamic Guidance handles the unscripted moments: the question mid-process, the infrequent task someone can't quite remember, the new hire who needs context on a specific field. See the article "Guided Tours + Dynamic Guidance (Together, by Design)" in the Adoption Services Hub for a full breakdown of how to use both effectively.

Resources

📄 Product Docs — Dynamic Guidance: docs.servicenow.com (search "Dynamic Guidance")
🔗 Adding Custom Sources: docs.servicenow.com (search "Dynamic Guidance external content")
🏠 Adoption Services Community Hub: Adoption Services Articles Hub
📊 Product Docs — Usage Insights: docs.servicenow.com (search "Usage Insights")
🎓 All Platform Academies: https://sn.works/academies

Interested in a feedback session? If you're on Zurich Patch 9 or later and have Now Assist for Platform, the Dynamic Guidance team is hosting 30–60 minute sessions to help you try it out in your sub-prod instance and share your feedback. Visit the Adoption Services Hub or scan the QR code from the session deck to sign up.

Conclusion

Dynamic Guidance is designed for the moments that matter most — the mid-process question, the infrequent admin task, the new hire who doesn't want to ask again. By pairing it with existing Guided Tours, connecting your internal documentation, and tracking adoption through Usage Insights, organizations can drive meaningful, measurable improvements in how users engage with the ServiceNow platform every day.

Have a question not covered here? Drop it in the comments or visit the Adoption Services Community Hub. The Dynamic Guidance team reads the feedback — your input directly shapes the roadmap.

Check out the Adoption Services Articles Hub for more resources

Platform Academy June 4th - Maximize Your Value from Dynamic Guidance

Maximize Your Value from Dynamic Guidance — Platform Academy Recap

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Adoption Services Articles Hub

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