Configuring AI Search for the product catalog

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated November 1, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Configuring AI Search for the product catalog

    AI Search enhances the product catalog in Sales Customer Relationship Management by enabling agents and customers to perform semantic and keyword queries to find relevant products and service specifications. It searches across product characteristics, bundled offerings, and related items using both exact keywords and semantic similarity, which interprets the intent behind queries to deliver more accurate results.

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    Key Features

    • Indexed Sources: AI Search indexes product offerings from the Product Offering [snprdpmproductoffering] table and service specifications from the Service Specification [snprdpmservicespecification] table, utilizing product attributes from configuration JSON fields for detailed search capabilities.
    • Semantic Index Configuration: Controls embedding models and indexing parameters to optimize semantic understanding and search relevance.
    • Search Sources: Define searchable records with conditions (e.g., product offerings must be published and sellable) to filter search results appropriately.
    • Search Profiles: Allow customization of the search experience, including synonyms, stop words, typo handling, and result improvement rules to tailor AI Search behavior.
    • Search Application Configurations: Specify the search engine, profile, and auto-complete settings that govern how AI Search operates in the product catalog interface.
    • AI Search Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG): Enhances semantic search accuracy by matching queries with indexed records using AI-driven techniques.
    • Role Management: Product catalog admins with the aisadmin role can manage AI Search indexing and search settings.

    Implementing AI Search

    • Installation: For customers upgrading from releases prior to Zurich, the AI Search for Next Experience plugin must be installed; it is preinstalled for new Zurich instances.
    • Plugin Configuration: Install or verify the Now Assist for Sales Force Automation (SFA) plugin (snsomgenai) to enable AI Search RAG capabilities. Without this, only basic keyword (Zing) search is available.
    • Scheduled Jobs: Run jobs to populate product offering categories (for upgrades) and to publish stop word dictionaries, search profiles, and index tables to prepare AI Search.
    • Enabling AI Search: Set the property enableaisearchincatalog to true to activate AI Search in the product catalog interface.
    • Post-Implementation Management: Product catalog admins can customize AI Search settings, including indexing and search profiles, to optimize the search experience.

    Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    Implementing AI Search in the product catalog enables faster, more intuitive product discovery by leveraging semantic understanding beyond simple keyword matches. This improves agent and customer efficiency in locating appropriate products and services, ultimately driving better sales and customer satisfaction outcomes. The solution is configurable and manageable via roles and settings, allowing adaptation to specific catalog needs and business requirements.

    Configure and manage the implementation of AI Search in the product catalog for Sales Customer Relationship Management.

    How AI Search works in the catalog interface

    AI Search in the product catalog for Sales Customer Relationship Management transactions enables agents and customers to use semantic queries combined with keyword queries to find relevant product offerings and service specifications.

    AI Search looks across all product offerings and service specifications, including product characteristics, bundled product offerings, and child offerings, to return results in the product catalog interface.

    For example, entering the term sedan finds any products that contain this characteristic, parent products containing child products with this characteristic, and related products that have semantic similarity to this search term or results. Semantic similarity considers the context behind user queries, such as the user intent, to determine relevant results even if the exact terms or phrases aren’t provided​.

    To enhance the accuracy of semantic results, AI Search uses the AI Search Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) application, which matches user queries with indexed records based on both keyword and semantic similarity.

    The main elements of AI Search for product catalog include the following:

    Indexed source
    Defines the table records to be indexed for product catalog search:
    • The Product Offering Indexed source uses the Product Offering [sn_prd_pm_product_offering] table as the source. The Configuration JSON field in the Product Offering table provides the characteristic options and attributes for products, which are used by AI Search to find catalog items by characteristics and options.
    • The Service Specification indexed source uses the Service Specification [sn_prd_pm_service_specification] table as the source.
    • Semantic Index Configuration settings define the embedding model, chunking configuration, and the semantic index fields used to control semantic indexing in AI Search. To learn more about semantic indexing, see Semantic index configuration for indexed sources.
    For more information on indexed sources, see Indexed sources in AI Search.
    Search source
    A search source defines the searchable set of indexed records to be used and the conditions for items that can be searched. For example, the Product Offering Search source has two conditions that a product offering must meet so that it's returned as a search result:
    • [State] [is] [published]
    • [Sellable] [is] [true]

    The Service Specification Search source has one condition, [State] [is] [published], that a specification must meet so that it's returned as a search result.

    For more information on search sources, see Search sources in AI Search.
    Search profiles
    Search profiles (Product Offering Search Profile and Service Specification Search Profile) manage the search experience offered to users and the data to be searched. You can fine-tune the synonyms, stop words, typo handling rules used in auto-correction, and result improvement rules that control the product catalog search experience. To learn more about the features that can be changed in a search file, see Search profiles in AI Search.
    Search application configurations
    Search application configurations define the search engine used, the search profile used, and also auto-complete suggestions. For details about these configurations, see Search application configurations.

    Product catalog admins inherit the ais_admin role, which enables them to create, read, update, and delete content indexing and search settings for AI Search.

    Implementing AI Search for product catalog

    Users with the admin role perform the following steps to implement AI Search for the product catalog.
    1. Install AI Search for Next Experience only if you upgraded from Tokyo or a previous release.

      Skip this step if you're a new customer using the Zurich release or if your instance was zBooted in the Zurich release. AI Search for Next Experience is automatically installed.

    2. Configure Now Assist for Sales Force Automation (SFA).
      Depending on your entitlements, the Now Assist for Sales Force Automation (SFA) plugin might be automatically installed. If it is not automatically installed but you have the appropriate entitlements, install the Now Assist for Sales Force Automation (SFA) plugin (sn_som_gen_ai). This plugin installs the AI Search RAG plugin (sn_ais_rag) and the AI Search Semantic Controller plugin (com.glide.ais.semantic_search) for the AI Search Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) application used by AI Search for product catalog.
      Note:
      If you don’t install Now Assist for Sales Force Automation (SFA) plugin (sn_som_gen_ai), the product catalog interface provides simple keyword search, also known as Zing search.
    3. Run scheduled job to populate product offering categories only if you upgraded to the Zurich.

      This step adds the product offering categories field to the Product Offering table. Skip this step if you're a new customer using the Zurich release or if your instance was zBooted in the Zurich release.

    4. Run scheduled job to publish stop words dictionary, search profiles, and index tables.

      This scheduled job sets up the indexes and publishes the stop word dictionary and search profiles used in AI Search for product catalogs.

    5. Enable AI Search in product catalog.

      Set the enable_ai_search_in_catalog property to true, which enables AI Search for the product catalog interface and verifies that the necessary files are configured to run AI Search.

    After AI Search has been implemented, product catalog admins can manage and customize various AI Search features if needed. Product catalog admins inherit the ais_admin role, which enables them to create, read, update, and delete content indexing and search settings for AI Search.