Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) release notes

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) Xanadu Release Notes

    Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) integrates generative AI into the ServiceNow CSM platform to enhance productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. The Xanadu release introduces significant improvements, including enhanced AI agents, security enforcement, multilingual support, and advanced case and communication management capabilities.

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    Key Features

    • Security Enhancements (Xanadu Patch 10): Enforce access control lists (ACLs) and user identity-based permissions on AI agents and agentic workflows to secure Now Assist for CSM functionalities.
    • Recommended Actions (Xanadu Patch 9): Generate suggested resolution steps based on data from previously closed cases, increasing agent productivity by outlining logical next steps for unfamiliar cases.
    • Expanded AI Agent Capabilities: Introduction of new standalone AI agents such as the Duplicate Identifier AI Agent for detecting and consolidating duplicate cases and interactions, alongside other specialized agents like Triage Cases Planner, Context Validator, and Email Response AI Agent.
    • Agent Productivity Tools (Xanadu Patch 7): Use the Triage Cases AI agent to efficiently manage routine cases, receive real-time contextual chat recommendations, get AI-generated email reply suggestions, and summarize sidebar conversations for smoother agent collaboration.
    • Multilingual Support: Large language model capabilities now support German, French, Japanese, Dutch, French Canadian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Italian across all Now Assist for CSM skills.
    • Enhanced Communication Summarization: Improved post-call summarization that supports reviewing handoffs between agents and generates summaries even without real-time transcripts.
    • Knowledge Management Enhancements: Generate and revise knowledge base articles by consolidating insights from multiple similar cases, with multilingual content creation and inline editing capabilities.
    • Improved Email Recommendation: AI-driven suggestions for new emails, forwards, and draft finalizations, including template recommendations to reduce composition time and increase accuracy.
    • Resolution Notes Generation: Create and customize resolution notes directly within case forms using Now Assist context menus in both Core UI and Workspace.

    Activation and Licensing

    Now Assist for CSM features require activation of the Now Assist for CSM plugin and are supported starting with Vancouver Patch 4 and enhanced from Xanadu Patch 7 onward. The application requires a Customer Service Management Pro Plus or Enterprise Plus license.

    Related Tools

    • Now Assist Admin Console: Simplifies setup, configuration, and monitoring of Now Assist applications and features.
    • Now Assist Panel: Provides a conversational interface within CSM Configurable Workspace to quickly summarize chats, cases, or resolution notes for faster context comprehension.
    • Now Assist Skills: Delivers generative AI capabilities tailored to different workflows, including case summarization, chat summarization, resolution note generation, and code generation.

    Practical Impact for ServiceNow Customers

    ServiceNow customers can leverage Now Assist for CSM in the Xanadu release to streamline case handling, enhance agent collaboration, and improve customer engagement through AI-powered recommendations and automation. The security enhancements ensure compliance with organizational policies, while multilingual support broadens accessibility across global teams. These improvements collectively reduce resolution times, improve self-service effectiveness, and foster consistent knowledge management, ultimately elevating the overall customer service experience.

    The ServiceNow® Now Assist for CSM application brings generative AI to Customer Service Management. You can improve productivity and efficiency by delivering better self-service, recommending actions, and delivering answers. Now Assist for CSM was enhanced and updated in the Xanadu release.

    Now Assist for CSM highlights for the Xanadu release

    Xanadu Patch 10: Enable security in Now Assist for CSM and AI agents and agentic workflows by enforcing access control lists (ACLs) and user identity-based permissions.

    Xanadu Patch 9
    • Use case resolution steps to generate recommended actions based on the data clusters from previously closed cases.
    • Use enhanced AI agents and new standalone AI agents for more specific tasks. For example, the Duplicate identifier AI agent identifies the duplicate interactions and cases from the customers and then consolidates the information.
    Xanadu Patch 7: Improve agent productivity by managing long running cases with the Triage cases AI agent use case.
    • Enhance customer conversations by receiving relevant contextual recommendations in real time.
    • Help improve productivity and decrease errors by the automatic generation of emails that can be verified and sent by the agent.
    • Consolidate information from multiple similar cases and bring it all together into a knowledge base article.
    • Summarize records to make it easier to hand off calls between agents and help improve customer satisfaction.

    See Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) for more information.

    Important:
    Now Assist for Customer Service Management (CSM) is available in the ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.

    New in the Xanadu release

    Xanadu Patch 10
    Triage cases agentic workflow security directives
    Implement security on AI agents and agentic workflows through ACLs and user identities.
    Now Assist for CSM Gen AI security directives
    Implement security in Now Assist for CSM skills through ACLs and user identities.
    Xanadu Patch 9
    Suggested steps in Recommended Actions
    Use Recommended Actions to generate suggested resolution steps for cases. You can increase agent productivity by outlining the next best actions for unfamiliar cases and automatically providing logical next steps.
    Triage cases agentic workflows enhancements
    Added new standalone AI agents to check duplicate cases and split some existing standalone AI agents to focus on more specific tasks. The AI agents available are the Triage cases planner AI agent, Context validator and analyzer agent, Duplicate identifier AI agent, Informational queries AI agent, Transactional queries AI agent, Case creation AI agent, Entity extraction AI agent, Document verification AI agent, and Email response AI agent.
    Xanadu Patch 7
    Triage cases AI agents use case
    Use the Triage cases AI agents use case to improve agent productivity through faster assessment.
    Table 1. Available AI agents use case
    AI agent use case Description
    Triage cases Use AI agents to handle all routine cases coming in through email and other offline channels, so that it improves customer satisfaction and reduces resolution times.
    Summarizing sidebar conversations
    Use Now Assist for CSM to summarize sidebar discussions between agents, requesters, and subject matter experts.
    Real-time chat reply recommendations
    Use generative AI to provide the agent with relevant contextual recommendations from sources such as knowledge bases, FAQs, similar cases, chats, and calls before they respond to the customer. Agents can also write a chat response with the help of generative AI. This feature helps agents stay focused on conversations with customers instead of doing manual tasks.
    Generative AI-powered email reply recommendations
    Get recommendations for email responses that can be reviewed and sent by agents. Agents can also edit email replies recommendation with the help of generative AI.
    Multilingual support for Now Assist for CSM skills
    Large language model (LLM) now supports the following languages across all skills in Now Assist for CSM: German, French, Japanese, Dutch, and French Canadian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Italian.

    Changed in this release

    Enhancement in post-call summarization
    • You can now review a call that has been handed off from one live agent to another agent, and then provide a summary of the key topics that are covered during the conversation.
    • Support for outbound calls from agents to the customers.
    • Generate a call summary when the real-time transcript is not available.
    Knowledge generation from multiple cases
    You can now select and gather insights and data from multiple similar cases to draft an article by using Now Assist for CSM.
    Enhancements in chat summarization
    Multiple Language Support via Digital technology (DT) support and a new step in the guided flow that allows the customization of how and when the skill capability will be available in the admin console.
    Enhancements in Email recommendation
    Get recommendations for email responses when starting new emails, forwarding messages, or finalizing drafts. Help improve agent productivity by reducing the time taken to compose email and improve relevance of email reply recommendations. Also, get template recommendations while composing an email by leveraging AI search.
    Enhancement in Resolution notes generation
    Generate resolution notes and then shorten or elaborate the content using the Now Assist context menu in the resolution notes field of the case form, in both Core UI (UI16) and Workspace.
    Enhancements in Knowledge generation
    Revise the content in existing knowledge articles by using the Now Assist icon , which is accessible as an inline capability, and create and refine knowledge articles. You can also generate knowledge articles in multiple languages.
    Xanadu Patch 7 Case summarization enhancement
    Extended the capabilities of the case summarization feature so it can now be used on custom tables.

    Activation information

    Now Assist features are available with activation of the Now Assist for CSM plugin. For more information, see Install Now Assist plugins.

    Starting with Vancouver Patch 4, Now Assist for CSM is supported.

    Starting with Xanadu Patch 7, Customer Service Management AI agent collection is supported.

    Additional requirements

    The Now Assist for CSM application requires a Customer Service Management Pro Plus or Enterprise Plus license.

    Related ServiceNow applications and features

    Now Assist
    Help improve the productivity and efficiency in your organization, deliver better self-service, recommend actions, provide answers, and empower your users to search more effectively.
    Now Assist Admin console
    Use the Now Assist Admin console to provide you with quick and easy access to the important information that you need to set up, configure, and monitor Now Assist applications and features.
    Now Assist panel
    Use this conversational interface in CSM Configurable Workspace to summarize a chat, a case, or resolution notes so that you can get the context of this information more quickly.
    Now Assist skills
    Use the Now Assist products to provide generative AI skills to meet the needs of users in different workflows, including case or incident summarization, chat summarization, resolution notes generation, and code generation.