Deploying Custom AI Agent to ServiceNow Service Portal: Integration Help Needed.

[ShaikFaheemuddi]

Hello Community,

I'm looking to deploy a custom-built AI Agent (or custom conversational interface) and integrate it directly into our ServiceNow Service Portal. My goal is to enhance user experience by providing a more sophisticated and flexible virtual assistant than what might be available out-of-the-box for certain specific use cases.

I'm interested in the technical deployment strategies for connecting an external or custom-developed AI Agent to the Service Portal environment.

Specifically, I'm hoping to get insights on the following key areas:

1. ⚙️ Deployment Strategy
What are the recommended methods for deploying an AI Agent/custom Virtual Assistant? Should I focus on using ServiceNow's Virtual Agent Designer to connect to an external Natural Language Understanding (NLU) engine, or is an entirely custom widget on the Service Portal a better approach?

How can the AI Agent be hosted (e.g., on a cloud platform like AWS/Azure/GCP) and securely connected to the ServiceNow instance? Are there specific API Gateway or MID Server considerations for maintaining security and performance?

2. 🔗 Integration Points
What is the best way to embed the chat interface into the Service Portal? Should I use an iFrame, a custom Service Portal Widget built using Angular, or the built-in Virtual Agent framework?

What is the typical method for the Service Portal/Widget to pass the user's input to the external AI Agent and receive the response? Are ServiceNow Scripted REST APIs the standard approach for this two-way communication?

3. 🔐 Authentication and Security
How do you manage user authentication and context passing from the logged-in Service Portal user to the external AI Agent?

What are the security best practices (e.g., OAuth 2.0, API Keys) for securing the communication channel between ServiceNow and the external agent?

Any examples, recommended documentation, or guidance on the technical steps to achieve this secure and seamless integration would be highly appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your help and expertise.

Shaik Faheemuddin