Supporting information for ServiceNow Otto for IT Service Management (ITSM)

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
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    Summary of Supporting information for ServiceNow Otto for IT Service Management (ITSM)

    The ServiceNow Otto for IT Service Management (ITSM) application, updated for the Zurich release as of July 31, 2025, provides a suite of AI-powered skills designed to enhance ITSM workflows. It integrates with supported versions of ServiceNow Core UI (starting from Vancouver Patch 2) and Service Operations Workspace for ITSM (starting from version 6.0.0).

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    Key Features

    • AI Model Support: The application supports multiple large language models (LLMs) including Now LLM Service, Azure OpenAI, Google Gemini, and Anthropic Claude on AWS. Administrators can manage which AI options are available via the AI Control Tower and configure skill-level preferences in the AI Admin Hub console.
    • Role Masking for Security: Role masking restricts user access to agentic workflows, standalone AI agents, and skills by limiting permissions to only those necessary for their tasks. It works alongside Access Control Lists (ACLs) to enforce granular data access.
    • Role Masking in Action: When executing ITSM skills that use LLMs (e.g., incident summarization), data retrieval obeys ACL rules for the active role, and role masking filters the AI-generated output to ensure sensitive information is protected and users only see content aligned with their access rights.
    • Supported User Interfaces: The Otto for ITSM skills are available in both Service Operations Workspace for ITSM and Core UI, with features such as incident summarization, resolution notes generation, knowledge article creation, chat summarization, change request summarization, email reply recommendations, and more. Use of the Now Assist panel requires enabling Next Experience.

    What This Enables You to Do

    ServiceNow Otto for ITSM empowers your IT teams to accelerate and improve service management tasks by leveraging AI-driven content generation and summarization across incidents, change requests, chats, and emails. The robust role masking and ACL integration ensure that sensitive information remains secure and accessible only to authorized users, enhancing compliance and data privacy.

    Practical Considerations

    • Ensure your ServiceNow instance is on supported versions to utilize Otto for ITSM features.
    • Configure AI model providers and preferences through AI Control Tower and AI Admin Hub to tailor AI capabilities to your organizational needs.
    • Understand and implement role masking to maintain secure and appropriate access when using AI-powered skills.
    • Activate Next Experience to access the Now Assist panel and maximize the AI skill set in supported interfaces.

    Get a quick overview of the important information that is related to the ServiceNow Otto for IT Service Management (ITSM) application.

    Supported versions

    • For Core UI: Starting with Vancouver Patch 2
    • For Service Operations Workspace for ITSM: Starting with version 6.0.0

    Supported language models for all ServiceNow Otto for ITSM skills and AI agents

    You can use Now LLM Service, Azure OpenAI, Google Gemini or Anthropic Claude on AWS as the AI model provider for all generative AI skills and AI agents. Use the Configuration Controls in AI Control Tower to define which options are available, then set the skill-level preferences in the AI Admin Hub console. For more information, see Large language models on the ServiceNow AI Platform®.

    Role masking for ServiceNow Otto for ITSM agentic workflows, AI agents, and skills

    Mask roles to restrict user access to agentic workflows, standalone AI Agents, and skills. This ensures that users receive only the necessary permissions for their tasks to enhance security and reduce the risk of unauthorized access.

    How Role Masking Works

    Consider a scenario where a user is given roles A, B, and C and each role can access only a specific set of data. Using Access Control Lists (ACLs), the user can access any data or functions that roles A, B, and C could access. When role masking is applied, the user can only access data specific to that role.

    Role masking considerations for the Now Assist in ITSM skills

    When an ITSM skill is executed, access to its features is initially governed by ACL permissions. This ensures that users can only access the data and functions for which they are authorized. If the skill uses a Large Language Model (LLM) to perform its function, an additional layer of access control, which is role masking, is applied to the output generated by the LLM.

    Consider a user who has been assigned multiple roles: A, B, and C, each with distinct access privileges. If this user is logged in as role A, activates the Incident summarization skill, and selects Summarize, the process is executed in two key steps:
    1. Data Retrieval

      ACL permissions associated with role A are used to fetch the relevant data from the incident table. This ensures that the user can only access data that they are authorized to view.

    2. Data Summarization

      After the data is retrieved, an LLM is used for the incident summarization. Role masking is applied to the summarization output based on the access defined for role A and the summarized output is tailored based on the access privileges defined by role masking for role A.

    By applying both ACL permissions and role masking, the system ensures a secure and granular access control mechanism for ITSM skills, protecting sensitive information while providing users with the insights they need to perform their tasks effectively.

    For information on role masking, see Role masking in Now Assist AI agents.

    Supported user interfaces

    The ServiceNow Otto for ITSM application includes the skills that are listed in the following table.
    Note:
    Next Experience must be enabled to use the Now Assist panel. For more information, see Considerations for activating Next Experience.
    Table 1. ServiceNow Otto for ITSM supported interfaces
    Interface Features
    Service Operations Workspace for ITSM
    • Incident summarization
    • Resolution notes generation
    • Chat summarization
    • Now Assist panel
    • Knowledge article generation
    • Sidebar discussion summarization
    • Change request summarization
    • Chat reply recommendation
    • Change request risk explanation
    • Incident assist
    • Email reply recommendation
    • Major Incident Management email content recommendation
    Core UI
    • Incident summarization
    • Resolution notes generation
    • Now Assist panel
    • Knowledge article generation
    • Sidebar discussion summarization
    • Change request summarization
    • Change request risk explanation
    • Incident assist
    • Email reply recommendation