Use an AI agent action
Summarize
Summary of Use an AI Agent Action
The "Use an AI agent" action in Flow Designer allows ServiceNow customers to run AI agents within their flows and capture the agent’s output for further use. This action is available as part of the Flow Designer Gen AI spoke and requires the Now Assist AI agents plugin. Users with theflowdesigneroradminroles can add and configure this action to automate AI-driven tasks within flows.
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Key Features
- AI Agent Selection: Reference an AI agent installed and configured via the Now Assist AI agents plugin.
- Support User: Specify a user for supervised mode to review and authorize AI agent actions, ensuring adherence to security controls.
- Objective Input: Provide text instructions that guide the AI agent’s task.
- Execution Modes: Choose between Autonomous mode (runs without user input) and Supervised mode (requires user approval).
- Wait for Completion: Optionally pause the flow until the AI agent finishes processing.
- Expected Outputs: Define the expected data objects from the AI agent, enabling use of its output in subsequent flow steps.
- Conversation Label and Context Memory: Customize the conversation name in the Now Assist panel and provide contextual information to refine AI output.
Outputs and Practical Use
The action outputs several useful items for flow continuation:
- Execution Plan Record: Contains details of the AI agent’s tasks and messages.
- Agent Output: Dynamic object with expected output values generated by the AI agent.
- Agent Message and Status: The AI agent’s response message and run status indicating success or failure.
These outputs can be used as inputs to other flow actions, enabling automated decision-making and communication.
Example Use Case
For example, the Incident resolution details AI agent (available with the ServiceNow Otto for ITSM plugin) can be run in supervised mode to generate incident resolution notes. The flow pauses for the support user to review the AI’s suggestions in the Now Assist panel. Once approved, the flow continues and uses the AI-generated output to send email notifications, streamlining incident management processes.
Use flow data to run an AI agent and configure the expected agent output for use later in the flow.
Roles and availability
Available as a Flow Designer Gen AI spoke action, which requires the Now Assist AI agents plugin. Users with the flow_designer or admin role can add an action to a flow and define configuration details.
Inputs
Provide a value for each input that your action needs. To add dynamic values, you can also select data pills using the pill picker.
- AI Agent
- Data type: Reference
The AI Agent that you want to use in this flow. You must install the Now Assist AI agents plugin and create and configure an AI agent. For information about installing the Now Assist AI agents plugin, see Install Now Assist AI agents. For information about creating an AI agent, see Create an AI agent.
- Support User
- Data type: Reference
The user who is contacted by Now Assist to review and authorize the AI agent's work when the AI agent runs in supervised mode. Select a user who meets the security criteria defined in the AI security controls. If the AI agents is configured to accept a dynamic user, select a user that has the roles necessary to run the AI agent. For more information about the security controls of an AI agent, see Define security controls for an AI agent. For information about turning on the Now Assist panel, see Activate the Now Assist panel standard chat.
- Objective
- Data type: String
The text directions sent to the AI agent.
- Wait for completion
- Data type: True/False
Option to pause the flow until the AI agent finishes running and provides output values.
- Execution mode
- Data type: Choice
Option to run an AI agent with or without user input or approval. In Autonomous mode, the action runs the AI agent without any user input or approval. In Supervised mode, the action requires user input or approval to run the AI agent.
- Expected outputs
- Data type: Dynamic Object
List of output objects that the AI agent is expected to return. Each expected output is an object that has a label, name, and a data type value. You can use the expected outputs to gather data from the AI agent and then use that data elsewhere in the flow.
- Conversation label
- Data type: String
The name that identifies the conversation about running the AI agent in the Now Assist panel. For information about activating the Now Assist panel, see Activate the Now Assist panel standard chat.
- Context Memory
- Data type: String
The context information that you want to send to the AI agent. This context helps determine what output values the AI agent produces.
Outputs
You can use these outputs as inputs for other items.
- Execution Plan Record
- Data type: Reference
The record containing the Objective, Execution Tasks, Messages, and Tools Executions run by the AI agent.
- Agent Output
- Data type: Dynamic Object
The object containing the list of expected output values generated by the AI agent.
- Agent Message
- Data type: String
The message returned by the AI agent.
- Agent Status
- Data type: String
The run status of the AI agent. The AI agent returns success when it runs or failure when it doesn't run.
Use Incident resolution details AI agent
This example requires installing the ServiceNow Otto for IT Service Management (ITSM) plugin and turning on the Resolution notes generation skill.
In this example, the Use an AI agent action is configured to use the Incident resolution details AI agent in a supervised mode. The objective lists data that will help the AI understand the resolution of an incident.
Since this example runs in supervised mode, the flow pauses until the support user interacts with the conversation generated in the Now Assist panel.
After the support user provides the necessary response, the flow continues running the action and provides it output values. The flow uses these output values to send an email message.