Now Assist in Virtual Agent - What's New, what's different, and what's coming! (June 2024)

[Victor Chen]

As of June 2024 - Washington GA Patch 5

(To skip ahead and learn more about our Xanadu release, see this new post!)

🤖 What's New and improved in the Washington release

Now Assist in Virtual Agent provides a new low-code setup page that guides you through creating an LLM-powered Virtual Agent. You can access it either from the Conversational Interfaces Home page or from the Now Assist Admin > Features > Platform > Conversational Experience. Check out the YouTube video below to learn more!

For those who already have keyword or NLU topics created, you can now migrate your existing topics to LLM-based topics while maintaining its intent and topic flow. 

You also have the ability to create different "Assistants" with unique chat experiences. Notifications are also now supported. For conversational catalog requests, HTML, Masked, and Duration variable types are now supported. Some limitations with client scripts and UI policies have been removed. To learn more about how catalog ordering is supported, see the article: How to request catalog items in Now Assist in Virtual Agent. We also have Dynamic Translation available for Now Assist in VA as an OEM (let ServiceNow cover the translation costs!)

Note that as of Washington DC release, new features and enhancements are not available in previous versions such as Vancouver. Catch up on the latest with our release notes for Now Assist in Virtual Agent.

🔎 What's Different

There are several differences between the existing Virtual Agent and Now Assist in Virtual Agent. For starters, Now Assist in VA does not use keywords or NLU to determine intent, so it does not use the NLU Workbench. Instead, it uses a Large Language Model for intent recognition and search which improves its accuracy. The NLU-powered Virtual Agent is a separate chat client from Now Assist in Virtual Agent; NLU/keyword topics are not usable in Now Assist and vice versa with LLM topics not usable with NLU Virtual Agent. There are several features not supported in Now Assist in Virtual Agent for August (yet!), keep this in mind when deciding when to uptake Now Assist in Virtual Agent:

• Contextual search (Zing)
• Some topic node controls are not yet supported, e.g., topic switching at the node level
• Language detection (Dynamic translation however, is supported.)
• Analytics dashboards are separate

Recent additions to the Washington release: Notifications and proactive triggers support. 

For more guidance, see this article: When to consider using Now Assist in Virtual Agent

🌟 What's Coming*

In our next release, Xanadu, Virtual Agent admins will be able to improve the user experience when it comes to the setup experience and the Virtual Agent client itself. We are also expanding channels support such as Slack,  Microsoft 365 Copilot, and SMS. In Yokohama, you also get multi-turn Q&A conversations with expandable chat UI.

Learning more in the Now Learning course for Now Assist for Virtual Agent implementation.

Continue to check out our Community Forum as more information becomes available!

*Safe harbor applies for forward-looking statements.​

[Dan Y25]

hello Victor and team, what plugins are required for Now Assist in Virtual Agent and are they available from the store or elsewhere? Thank you, Dan

[Victor Chen]

@Dan Y25 - a Now Assist license is required. Now Assist in Virtual Agent is available in any "Now Assist for IT/HRSD/CSM..." plugin. 

[mhoenes]

Hi @Victor Chen ,

are there plans to make the Now Assist November release compatible with the latest Vancouver patches?
Looks like they can only be installed on Patch 4 as of now.

[Victor Chen]

Now Assist November release should be accessible to all Vancouver patches after Patch 4.

[Victor Chen]

Now Assist in Virtual Agent has been updated with Washington EA/Vancouver Patch 7, article has also been updated.

[mahajanravish5]

Do we have Now Assist capability in VA via Now Mobile app ? Kindly confirm.

[Travis Rogers]

@mahajanravish5 

Yes, now assist VA works in now mobile. Some corner cases don’t yet have full support, such as the ability to summarize a VA chat for a live agent that originated in now mobile. 

[Victor Chen]

Article updated for the May release!

[lherkalo]

Does Now Assist for VA come with template topics for quicker deployment like the NLU VA?

[Victor Chen]

@lherkalo - it comes with two so far: Manage Approvals and Check ticket and request statuses. More on the way!

[Travis Rogers]

@lherkalo and if you're using Now Assist for ITSM, new VA LLM topics were added in the May 2024 release:

• Service Disruptions
• Escalate IT Ticket
• Check IT Ticket Status
• Open IT Ticket
• Reset Password
• Change Password
• Unlock Account

You'll find this in the release notes of the v4.0.1 Now Assist for ITSM store app

[ashisharovi]

@Victor Chen  and @Travis Rogers  is there any way to improve the topic recommendation while using NowAssist Virtual Agent. We have filled up the "Topic Description used for discovery" for all of our llm topics.
The keywords are there but it is still not picking up the topic. We observed if we give the exact string as "Topic Description used for discovery" then only it is picking up the topic. Can you recommend something on this.

[Travis Rogers]

Hey @ashisharovi we are expecting the sys_generative_ai_log table to be reviewable by customers in the Q3 2025 timeframe. This table is currently restricted to maint users, but after this expected change you'll be able to get insights to outgoing prompts and incoming responses from the LLM to better understand what might be happening behind the scenes. *Safe harbor on planned product changes applies*

[Lukasz Rzegocin]

Hi, is it possible to embed a Now Assist VA in external web pages as it is possible for NLU VA? If not yet, can anything be expected in the near future?

[PaulSylo]

@Victor Chen  - After moving to now assist for VA , still i am getting NLU resposne only. not the response form LLM, hw to troubleshoot this 

[Praveen Kumar30]

Hello @Victor Chen and Team,

After upgrading our instances to Xanadu Patch 9, the LLM Virtual Agent’s Now Assist feature consistently triggers error messages and does not return results for Chinese language queries. Could you please advise if there are any known issues or required configuration steps for Chinese language support in Now Assist with Xanadu Patch 9, or provide any relevant documentation regarding this problem?

[daviddalley66]

Thanks for the detailed breakdown this was super helpful!
I’ve been exploring Virtual Agent enhancements lately, and seeing how Now Assist integrates into the flow feels like a big step forward. I especially love how contextual awareness is getting sharper — less back-and-forth with users improves the experience. I’m planning to test some custom NLU models soon, and this gave me a much clearer starting point. Appreciate the post!
Here’s the link for others who missed it: Now Assist in Virtual Agent – What’s New