How to host multiple instances of the Virtual Agent?

[Mikael Karlsson]

We are new customers currently rolling out ITSM.

We have some old specific use-cases we need to bring with us into ServiceNow without necessarily getting the specific modules yet One of these is a Sustainability Chatbot FAQ style which our ESG staff uses.

Is it possible to have a separate instance of the virtual agent which only answers topics from this certain FAQ KB? Or does this content have to live together with the "IT" chatbot, if so, can we work around so that if launched through a certain URL (parameter) it only chats about this specific topic?

I've heard that there can only be one instance of the agent per SN instance but I believe my use-case is possible since i assume that when having the HR portal for example, that bot would only handle HR related topics?

[Mark Roethof · Accepted solution]

Please navigate to:

Service Portal > Agent Chat

If my answer helped you in any way, please then mark it as helpful.

Kind regards,
Mark
2020-2022 ServiceNow Community MVP
2020-2022 ServiceNow Developer MVP

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[Sandaru1]

A bit of late reply :

Yes, your use case is absolutely possible even though ServiceNow technically supports only one Virtual Agent engine per instance. While there is only a single Virtual Agent framework running, you can logically separate experiences by controlling which topics, knowledge bases, and conversations are available based on portal, user criteria, roles, or entry context.

This is exactly how HR portals work. Even though the same Virtual Agent engine is used across the platform, when accessed through an HR portal it only exposes HR-related topics and knowledge content because visibility is restricted through topic configuration and knowledge base permissions.

For your Sustainability chatbot, you can achieve the same behavior by creating dedicated Virtual Agent topics that reference only your Sustainability FAQ knowledge base and restricting their visibility either through a separate portal, user criteria, or by detecting the entry context such as a specific URL parameter.

If launched from a Sustainability portal or a specific entry point, the bot can be configured to only display Sustainability-related topics and ignore IT topics entirely. So while there is technically only one agent per instance, you can absolutely design it to behave like a separate, focused chatbot experience for ESG without mixing it with your ITSM conversations.