Domain separation and AI Search

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Domain separation and AI Search

    Domain separation allows ServiceNow customers to segment data, processes, and administration into logical domains, controlling user access and visibility. However, the AI Search application tables themselves do not support domain separation, meaning the underlying AI Search tables do not enforce domain logic. Despite this, AI Search respects domain restrictions when performing user search queries by filtering results based on the domain of the indexed ServiceNow AI Platform® table records.

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    How AI Search Handles Domain Separation

    • When AI Search indexes content from ServiceNow AI Platform tables, it stores the sysdomain field values from both source and referenced records.
    • If domain separation is enabled, AI Search applies a domain filter on every search query to restrict results to only those records visible within the user's current session domain.
    • For child tables with the domainmaster attribute, AI Search derives the child record domain from the referenced parent record for indexing and search filtering.
    • Records that are referenced but not visible in the current session domain are excluded from search results, and filtering or faceting on these reference fields does not affect the results.
    • If a referenced record’s domain differs from its parent record’s domain, the search results will omit the reference field from display.

    Managing Domain Updates in Indexed Records

    AI Search automatically updates domain information for records in indexed source tables but does not automatically update domains for referenced tables. To maintain accurate domain data in referenced tables, ServiceNow customers can:

    • Perform a full table reindex of the indexed source that includes the referenced table for a one-time domain update.
    • Enable automatic domain updates on referenced tables by configuring a dotwalkfields field setting on the reference field. This setting specifies domain fields (sysdomain, sysdomainpath) to keep domain data current automatically.

    Why This Matters to ServiceNow Customers

    This behavior ensures that AI Search results respect domain separation policies, maintaining data visibility and security boundaries across domains. Understanding how domain data is indexed and filtered helps customers manage their search configurations and domain setup effectively, ensuring users see only the data they are authorized to access during searches.

    Domain separation is unsupported for the AI Search application tables, but user search queries respect domain restrictions from indexed ServiceNow AI Platform® table records. Domain separation enables you to separate data, processes, and administrative tasks into logical groupings called domains. You can control several aspects of this separation, including which users can see and access data.

    Note:
    Refer to the Overview and following sections for details on how AI Search search queries respect domain settings from indexed records.

    Support level: No support

    • The domain field may exist on data tables but there is no business logic to manage the data.
    • This level is not considered domain-separated.

    For more information on support levels, see Application support for domain separation.

    AI Search domain separation overview

    AI Search enables users to index and search content from records in ServiceNow AI Platform tables. The AI Search application tables and properties don't support domain separation, but user search queries respect domain settings from indexed content as described in the following sections.

    Domain separation in indexed content and search queries

    When indexing searchable content from a ServiceNow AI Platform table, AI Search stores the sys_domain field values for records on the source table and referenced tables.

    If domain separation is enabled, AI Search applies a filter for the current session domain to every search query. This filter excludes records that aren't visible in the session domain. Only records visible in the session domain appear as search query results.

    For child tables that have the domain_master attribute set, both indexing and search use the appropriate reference field to derive the child record domain from a referenced parent record.

    Restrictions apply to referenced records in search queries, as summarized in the following table.

    Condition Behavior
    Referenced record isn't visible in current session domain
    • Search queries don't match content from the referenced record
    • Filtering on the reference field has no effect on search results
    • Faceting on the reference field has no effect
    Referenced record domain differs from parent record domain Search result records don't display the reference field

    Indexing changes to record domains

    AI Search automatically updates indexed domains for records in tables configured as indexed sources.

    AI Search doesn't automatically update indexed domains for referenced tables. You can update the indexed domain for a referenced table in either of the following ways.

    Use case Action
    Perform a one-time update of domain field values for a referenced table Perform a full table reindex for the indexed source that includes the affected table.

    For details on this procedure, see Perform a full table index or reindex for a single AI Search indexed source.
    Enable automatic updating of domain field values for a referenced table Create a dot_walk_fields field setting for the reference field, specifying the sys_domain,sys_domain_path domain fields as the attribute value.

    For full steps for this task, see Enable automatic domain updates for a referenced table.