ServiceNow Otto in Platform Analytics release notes
Summarize
Summary of ServiceNow Otto in Platform Analytics Release Notes
ServiceNow Otto in Platform Analytics, previously known as Now Assist, enables users to leverage generative AI to interact with Platform Analytics data through natural language conversations. This AI-powered capability allows non-technical users to analyze business data, generate insights, and create visualizations easily. The Australia release and subsequent patches have enhanced these features with improved AI data exploration, integration, collaboration, and customization options.
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Key Features
- AI-Generated Insights: Users can ask questions in natural language to receive documented insights and visualizations, with AI guiding further analysis through suggested follow-up questions. Two analysis modes—Standard and Extended—help uncover deeper insights.
- Integration with External Data: Supports extending data sources via Data Fabric tables to integrate external systems and obtain comprehensive company-wide insights.
- Document Editing and Organization: Insights can be collected, edited, and organized directly within the AI Data Explorer, allowing users to shape their data narratives effectively.
- Collaboration: Multiple users can collaborate simultaneously in a shared exploration space to refine analyses and accelerate data-driven decision-making.
- Smart Integration with Contextual Intelligence: AI Data Explorer can be triggered from any application, list, or visualization, using contextual awareness to highlight the most relevant data.
- Enhanced Visualizations: Single-score charts now render sparklines by default, and AI-generated responses respect default chart types when none is specified.
- Improved Segment Handling: Manual segments are prioritized over autogenerated ones, with improved logic supporting complex conditions, domain separation, and synchronization between manual and autogenerated segments.
- Support for Protected Scopes and Glide Lists: AI Data Explorer can now access data from protected application scopes and supports Glide List fields, expanding the range of accessible data.
- Customizable Semantic Metadata: Users can customize semantic descriptions and usage instructions in table and column configuration tables with changes transferable via update sets.
- Currency Data Support: Query Generation now supports FXCurrency data types, enabling exploration of financial operations data such as Source-to-Pay operations.
- Renaming and Admin Console Updates: Now Assist is renamed to ServiceNow Otto®, and the Now Assist Admin Console is now AI Admin Hub, reflecting ongoing UI and branding improvements.
Activation and Availability
Now Assist applications for Platform Analytics are included by default in some instances or can be installed from the ServiceNow Store. Customers can view all available apps and submit requests through the store. Activation details are provided in the release notes to assist with implementation.
Accessibility Enhancements
- Keyboard navigation improvements allow tabbing between text editor and icons in AI Data Explorer.
- Users can reorder exploration nodes using move up/down controls, enhancing accessibility beyond drag-and-drop.
Practical Impact for ServiceNow Customers
ServiceNow Otto in Platform Analytics empowers users without technical expertise to explore and analyze data intuitively using natural language, accelerating insight generation and data-driven decisions. The integration with external data, collaboration features, and enhanced AI-driven analysis modes make it easier to uncover actionable intelligence across diverse datasets. Customization and improved segment management provide greater control and accuracy in data exploration, while accessibility enhancements ensure broader usability. Customers can expect a more interactive, efficient, and collaborative data analytics experience within the ServiceNow platform.
Now Assist in Platform Analytics consists of several skills and applications that let you generate and work with Platform Analytics objects through generative AI. These skills let you analyze your business data through conversational interactions, without a technical knowledge of Platform Analytics. Now Assist in Platform Analytics applications were enhanced and updated in the Australia release.
Now Assist in Platform Analytics highlights for the Australia release
- AI-Generated Insights: Ask questions in natural language and see them turned into documented insights and visualizations. AI guides your analysis and suggests follow-up questions to deepen your exploration. Switch between two powerful modes, Standard analysis and Extended analysis, to uncover hidden insights.
- Integration with External Data: Extend supported data sources and enable seamless integration with external systems through Data Fabric tables to gain more complete insights across the company’s diverse data.
- Document Editing and Organization: Shape your data story exactly as you need it. Collect, edit, and organize insights directly within your exploration.
- Collaboration with Other Users: Transform data analysis by working simultaneously with colleagues in a shared space to refine analyses, align on insights, and accelerate data-driven decisions.
- Smart Integration with Contextual Intelligence: Trigger AI Data Explorer instantly from any application, list, or data visualization. Doing so accesses powerful insights enhanced by contextual awareness and usage patterns to highlight the data that matter most to you.
See ServiceNow Otto for Platform Analytics for more information.
Changed in this release
- Australia Patch 5
- Promote selected indicators in AI Search results
- Add high-quality indicators that you identify to a list. The indicators on that list are given a boost in AI Search results for Query Generation.
- View more indicator insights in Extended analysis
- See directional trends over time and indicator target information in Extended analysis summaries.
- Improvements to data visualizations in Query Generation responses
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- Single-score charts now render sparklines by default.
- When a user query on indicator data does not specify a visualization type, the response returns the indicator's default chart type.
- Now Assist renamed to ServiceNow Otto®
- The Now Assist Admin Console is now AI Admin Hub and many other changes have been made. This renaming is a work in progress.
- Australia Patch 4
- Query indicator data
- Get scores from automated indicators in your AI Data Explorer explorations. Only classic automated indicators, not Data snapshots, are supported.
- Australia Patch 3
- Explorations not available from visualization or list for unsupported scope
- You can't open AI Data Explorer from a data visualization or list that shows data from a protected scope that is not supported.
- Improvements to generated segments
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- The names of automatically generated segments now include both the module name and the name of the application it belongs to.
- Improved logic to join conditions for segments generated from reports and report sources. More complex conditions such as global OR are now supported.
- Australia Patch 2
- Explore data from protected scopes
- Provide access to protected application scopes to AI Data Explorer and Query Generation, and you can use data from those application tables in explorations. (Query Generation bundle 5.2)
- Improvements to how segments are handled
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- Manual segments are re-ranked to take priority over automatically generated segments.
- Prompt changes made to better support manual segments.
- More segments are passed to the LLM to increase the chance of the correct segment getting selected. Twelve segments are passed instead of three.
- Segments longer than 2000 characters are dropped to prevent context window bloat.
(Query Generation bundle 5.2)
- Query Generation support for Glide Lists
- Query Generation now supports Glide List fields on tables.
- Australia Patch 1
- Customize semantic metadata in configuration tables
- Customize semantic descriptions and usage instructions in the table and column configuration tables. Unlike the previous method of editing Entity and Dimension records, these changes can be transferred between instances through update sets.
- View recommended actions
- AI Data Explorer can suggest actions based on the insights that it generates in an exploration.
- Ask questions about FX currency data
- Query Generation now supports the FXCurrency (Currency 2) data type. This means that you can use AI Data Explorer to explore financial operations data, including those within Source-to-Pay Operations.
- Benefit from improvements to segments
- Segments are reusable definitions in Query Generation that provide non-obvious context to assist the semantic layer or LLM to select the correct dimension and values. Users can create manual segments via a new form. A scheduled job synchronizes
manual and autogenerated segments. This job also cleans up segments to help surface the correct segments and reduce noise.
Manual segments are re-ranked to take priority over automatically generated segments.
Domain separation is also now supported, with a Domain field on the Segments table. Segments based on reports and filters inherit the source domain. Manual segments have domains that are passed up to the Segments table on synchronization. Segments aren't supported for modules on domain-separated instances.
Activation information
Now Assist applications for Platform Analytics are either included by default or you can install them from the ServiceNow Store. Visit the ServiceNow Store to view all the available apps, and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.
Accessibility information
- (June 2026 AI Data Explorer) Keyboard navigation allows tabbing between the text editor and the icons.
- (June 2026 AI Data Explorer) Users can use move up/move down control menu items to change the order of question/response nodes in the exploration. Previously they could only drag the nodes.