---
sourceDocument: Australia Conversational Interfaces
sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/conversational-interfaces

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    - australia

ft:locale :

    - en-US

ft:publication_title :

    - Australia Conversational Interfaces

ft:clusterId :

    - convint

bundleId :

    - convint

workflow :

    - Platform


---

# Customizing a chat experience

# Customizing a Virtual Agent chat experience {#ariaid-title1}

* Release version: Australia
* 
* Updated March 12, 2026
* 
* ![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 4 minutes to read

Summarize  
![AI sparkle icon](https://servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ai-sparkle-icon) Summarized using AI  
This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.  

## Summary of Customizing a Virtual Agent chat experience

ServiceNow's Virtual Agent enables you to tailor chat experiences for end users based on the context in which they start a conversation.
A chat experience defines the conversation structure, initial topics shown to users, and AI Search configurations for delivering relevant search results within conversations.
You can customize the default chat experience or create multiple context-specific custom experiences to better serve users across different portals or channels.
Show full answer Show less  

## Key Features

* **Setup Topics:** These are pre-built conversation elements like greetings, feedback surveys, live agent support, error handling, and closing messages that form the basic structure of all Virtual Agent conversations. Setup topics automatically run at appropriate points based on user input and conversation context. They include intents and keywords for NLU or descriptions for LLM-based topic discovery. You can preview, duplicate, and customize these setup topics.
* **Promoted Topics:** You can highlight up to six key topics relevant to your users within the chat window for quick access. These promoted assets improve usability by surfacing important or frequently used topics upfront, although support may vary across client platforms.
* **Search Profile:** Defines the AI Search application's behavior, controlling which data sources are searched and how results are presented to users. It includes fallback mechanisms when the bot cannot match user intents or keywords, ensuring users receive helpful responses.

## Practical Configuration and Management

Administrators and topic authors manage chat experiences via the Virtual Agent settings interface (All \> Conversational Interfaces \> Settings \> Virtual Agent). From here, you can:

* Configure the default chat experience by activating or modifying setup topics, setting promoted topics, and adjusting search profiles.
* Create custom chat experiences tailored to specific user contexts or channels, overriding default settings as necessary.
* Test chat experiences using simulation tools to ensure conversations behave as intended before deployment.

## Why This Matters for ServiceNow Customers

Customizing chat experiences allows you to deliver more relevant, streamlined, and context-aware Virtual Agent interactions. This improves user satisfaction by providing quicker access to appropriate help topics, smoother handoffs to live agents, and effective fallback when the bot cannot resolve requests. By leveraging setup topics, promoted topics, and AI Search configurations thoughtfully, you can optimize the Virtual Agent to best support your organization's unique service needs.  
Create different chat experiences for your end users based on the context in which
they initiate a conversation with Virtual Agent.

## How chat experiences work {#va-conversation-settings__section_xk1_whr_4nb}

A chat experience defines the structure of a bot conversation (setup topics), an initial set of topics displayed to users (promoted assets), and the AI Search configurations for displaying search results in conversations. Virtual Agent provides a preconfigured, default chat experience that you (admins and topic authors) can use to control the user experience with Virtual Agent.  
You can configure the default chat experience and also create custom chat experiences, tailored to the context in which different users run Virtual Agent, such as the service portal or channel that they're using. Custom chat experiences inherit the default chat experience settings, but you can override the defaults as needed for a given context.  
Note:  
If you're using Virtual Agent Lite, you can configure certain setup topics in the default chat experience but you can't create custom chat experiences.  
A chat experience consists of setup topics, promoted assets, and a search profile:

Setup topics

:   Virtual Agent provides common conversational elements, such as a welcome greeting to begin a conversation and a conversation closing, and automatically includes them in virtual agent conversations.
    These pre-built elements, called setup topics, are part of a basic conversation structure that is applied to all your conversations. They are installed with Virtual Agent and Virtual Agent Lite.

    These setup topics run automatically at appropriate points in a conversation, based on the context, utterances (if NLU is enabled), topic description (if LLM is enabled) or keywords that users enter during the
    conversation.  
    Figure 1. Example setup topics in a conversation

    1. Greeting
    2. LLM topic (conversational catalog request)
    3. Closing

    Virtual Agent provides the following types of pre-built setup topics:
    {#va-conversation-settings__table_sgn_hts_yhb__entry__2}

    | Setup topic | Description |
    |-|-|
    | Greeting | Presents a welcome greeting to users, and asks users to enter a request or see what items it can assist with. |
    | Provide Virtual Agent Feedback | Displays a survey to get user feedback on the conversational experience, before the conversation ends. |
    | Live Agent Support | Enables users to request a live agent transfer and view items that the live agent can assist with. |
    | Virtual Agent Capabilities | Presents a list of what the virtual agent can help with. |
    | Error Handling Topic | Displays a standard error message when an unrecoverable system error occurs and transfers the user to a live agent. |
    | Closing Conversation | Displays a closing message that ends the conversation. |
    | AI Search Fallback | Generates AI Search results for a user when Virtual Agent can't find a matching intent and topic or keyword. |
    | Fallback Topic | Presents standard messages that ask the user to enter another request or select a different topic when the virtual agent does not understand a user entry or selection. |
    | Anything Else Topic | After completing a task or request, virtual agent asks if the user needs further assistance with another request or task. |
    [ ]

    {#va-conversation-settings__table_sgn_hts_yhb}

    In NLU conversations, setup topics have corresponding intents (set in the pre-built NLU model for setup topics) and also keywords. Virtual Agent recognizes the utterances or keywords that users can enter to run certain setup topics, such as the Virtual Agent Capabilities (help) topic or the Live Agent support topic. Setup topics for LLM conversations rely on their own descriptions as the intents, which the LLM uses for topic discovery.

    You can preview (test) the pre-built setup topics to see how they work. On the Virtual Agent Designer home page, use the filter icon ![Filter icon.]() to sort only for Setup Topics, and then select the setup topics to test. Pre-built topics are read-only, but you can duplicate, customize (modify) if needed, and publish them.

Promoted topics
:
    You can display a collection of up to six topics that are relevant to your users, displayed before the Show me everything button in the chat window. You can use these promoted assets in a chat experience to give your users quick and convenient access to the topics used for a given context.  
    Note:  
    Promoted topics may not be supported on all clients.

    For more information, see [Promote or demote LLM conversational subflows, actions, and topics in Assistant Designer](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/FOlWceUPQrSsxWFsrcGw2w "Promote assets including conversational subflows, conversational actions, and topics in Assistant Designer, after associating them with a large language model (LLM) assistant, to have them suggested to the user by the LLM assistant.")

Search profile

:   A search profile defines how Virtual Agent search results are generated for an AI Search application. The search application's configuration specifies a search profile to use, and also determines how the generated results are
    displayed to users. Virtual Agent uses a default search application configuration and search profile that controls the data sources used for searches. Its UI configuration (set in the Entity View Action Mapping
    application) controls the search results displayed in Genius Result answer cards and multi-link output. These configurations also apply to search results generated as a fallback when Virtual Agent can't determine the appropriate topic. For more information, see [Improving the user experience with AI Search](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/sD7e0jmoWcNvwH~GbZlJCQ "Virtual Agent uses the ServiceNow AI Platform AI Search application to return search results in bot conversations as a fallback when there are no relevant topics to display to end users. Virtual Agent also provides a Run AI Search topic block that topic authors can use to generate search results in a topic.").

## Get started with chat experiences {#va-conversation-settings__section_u2r_tfz_vnb}

Navigate to AllConversational InterfacesSettings, and then select Virtual Agent. Use the Custom Greetings and Setup tile to manage the default and custom chat experiences. You can do the following:

* Configure the default chat experience, including the setup topics, promoted assets, and search criteria used. For example, you can activate the Virtual Agent Feedback setup topic so that it is applied to all your bot conversations.
* Create different custom chat experiences based on the context in which your end users run Virtual Agent. The settings that you define in a custom chat experience override the default chat experience.
{#va-conversation-settings__ul_gk2_3lz_tnb}
* **[Working with setup topics](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/kjqDscBcM4Vq~eT48qIpCA)**   
  Setup topics are part of a standard conversation structure applied to all your conversations, such as the welcome greeting or fallback responses. Setup topics run at the appropriate spot in a conversation based on the context, keywords, or utterances entered by the user, and any conditions that are specified for the setup topic.
* **[Configure a Virtual Agent chat experience](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/JgQvKFaxAONC7_tsw1sYzA)**   
  Change the preconfigured Virtual Agent default chat experience or create a custom chat experience for your users. You can configure setup topics, specify promoted topics, and if needed, change the search profile.
* **[Test chat experiences](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/RzbW1OgVeSVg1ql62C0f6w)**   
  After you create or modify a Virtual Agent chat experience, you can test (simulate) it to verify that it works as expected.

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