Enhanced chat
Summarize
Summary of Enhanced Chat in Now Assist in Virtual Agent - Zurich Release
Enhanced chat in Now Assist within Virtual Agent offers a conversational support experience integrated with advanced AI search and generative AI capabilities. It enables users to interact with a dynamic chat window supporting multiple simultaneous conversations, superior search functions, and seamless switching between chat and search results. This feature helps accelerate issue resolution and reduces the need for live agent intervention.
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The enhanced chat experience is available both as a default floating chat window and as an optional full-page chat interface, with synchronized conversations and retained history across both views.
Key Features
- Combined Chat and Search: Users can initiate conversations directly from portal search bars with suggested prompts or queries that redirect into chat or search result pages. Synthesized AI-generated answers with inline citations appear atop search results to provide quick, contextual responses.
- Chat Window Controls: The chat window is movable, resizable, pinnable to the browser side, and can expand to occupy 90% of the screen. It persists across browser tabs unless minimized.
- Multiple Active Conversations: Users can manage multiple chats simultaneously, with clear indicators for unread messages, updates, and closed conversations. Closed chats become read-only and can be deleted.
- Language Detection: Conversations automatically switch to the detected language if it differs from the user’s profile preference, supporting multilingual interactions.
- Interactive View: Provides additional contextual information, such as organizational charts, alongside chat responses when available.
- Generative AI and Synthesized Responses: Responses combine catalog items, Virtual Agent topics, knowledge articles, external content sources, and people citations, with inline citations linking to source details or actions.
- Agentic Conversations: AI agents can handle complex queries, reasoning across multiple questions, executing workflows, and providing a step-by-step view of the AI’s processing flow. Admins must enable AI agents to activate this feature.
- Catalog Integration: Users can request catalog items via chat or forms, with order summaries presented post-completion.
- People and Knowledge Graph Integration: People citations provide detailed profile information, shared Microsoft SharePoint files (when configured), and org charts. Extended entities like assets and incidents can also be queried if Knowledge Graph is enabled.
- Live Agent Support: Users can escalate to a live agent from the chat interface when needed. Only one live agent conversation is allowed at a time, with chat history moving to closed chats after the session ends. Post-chat surveys are available after live agent interactions.
- Fallback Options: When AI cannot provide relevant answers, fallback options include requesting live chat, searching the web, creating generic tickets, or triggering custom fallback topics to ensure continuous user support.
- User Feedback Mechanism: Users can provide detailed feedback on AI responses via thumbs up/down icons, including reasons and comments, enabling continual improvement through analytics.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Enhanced chat integrates AI search and generative AI to deliver faster, more accurate self-service support on portals without needing immediate live agent assistance.
- Multiple chat sessions and rich conversational context help users multitask and retrieve information efficiently.
- Seamless switching between chat and search results with inline citations improves transparency and trust in AI-generated responses.
- Language detection and Knowledge Graph integration enable personalized, multilingual, and context-rich user experiences.
- Live agent escalation and fallback options ensure users always have access to human help when AI assistance is insufficient.
- Admins have control over chat behaviors like inactivity timeouts, closed chat visibility, pinning, and enabling AI agents, allowing customization to fit organizational needs.
Next Steps for Implementation
- Enable enhanced chat and configure the full-page experience if desired to combine chat and search seamlessly.
- Activate AI agents to leverage agentic conversations for handling complex queries.
- Integrate Knowledge Graph and external content connectors to enrich chat responses with organizational and external data.
- Configure fallback options and live agent availability to maintain consistent user support.
- Review and set system properties for chat window behavior, inactivity timeouts, notification preferences, and suggested search queries to optimize user experience.
Now Assist in Virtual Agent enhanced chat is a conversational support experience within a dynamic window that also includes the ability to have multiple active conversations and superior search capabilities. Turning on enhanced chat's full-page experience further combines chat and search capabilities by redirecting you into a full-page chat after entering a query into a portal's search bar.
Now Assist in Virtual Agent enhances the user experience by combining AI Search with generative AI chat skills. These skills can speed up issue resolution and reduce deflection to a live agent.
Now Assist in Virtual Agent provides your users with an interactive generative AI experience. A friendly, natural language conversation is easier to understand and helps users to be more comfortable with chatting to a bot.
The following sections highlight how a conversation powered by generative AI might look in Virtual Agent.
Starting the conversation
With enhanced chat, chat and search capabilities are combined. Suggested conversational prompts and searches may appear in a drop-down list on the portal's search bar. The Ask Now Assist section header may appear at the top of the portal search bar's drop-down list. When you select one of these suggested queries, you’re redirected into a conversation within a chat window or full-page experience. You receive relevant answers based on the prompt that you have selected. If you select a suggested type-ahead search outside of the Ask Now Assist header, that search query begins in either the portal's search results page or within the full-page experience's Search tab.
When you're using enhanced chat and you enter a search query through your portal's search bar, you’re redirected to the portal's search results page. At the top of the search results page, you see Genius Results in a synthesized
response generated by Now Assist. This synthesized response answer provides inline citations that appear at the end of each sentence. You can select citations and if applicable, such as for conversational catalog items, select whether to 
Request with form or 
Request in chat. Similar options also appear in the regular search results area, as indicated by the request in chat icon ( ) and request with form icon (). Depending on your selection, the catalog request flow launches within either the Virtual Agent chat or a form.
You can start the chat experience either through the chat icon on the portal's search results page or through the portal's chat widget button.
After selecting the chat widget button on the portal, the floating chat window opens and replaces the chat button. A greeting message appears, and a chat is created only after you have entered an initial utterance. If you have an active chat ongoing, the current active chat appears instead of a greeting message. You can select a predefined action, topic, suggested search query, start a new conversation, or view all options, if applicable. The View all options link only shows if more than one suggested search query or promoted topic is available.
If language detection is turned on and the initial utterance entered into the portal's search bar or chat differs from the user's profile language preference, the conversational language automatically switches to the detected language. For more information and examples of language detection in enhanced chat conversations, see Using language detection and dynamic machine translation in Virtual Agent enhanced chat conversations.
Navigating the chat window resizing options and controls toolbar
After selecting the chat widget button, the floating chat window opens and replaces the chat button. You can move the chat window by selecting the header and dragging the chat window to the desired location. You can resize the chat window by using the window's edges to resize to your desired size or use the toolbar icons. The following list details the chat window adjustment icons:
: Selecting the expand icon expands the chat into a 90% screen-size window. The 90% screen-size window can’t be resized or moved. Selecting outside of the 90% screen-size chat window resizes the chat back into the floating window.
: Selecting the pin icon pins the chat to the side of the browser but you can still resize this window to fill half the browser, if desired. When you duplicate a browser tab, open a new tab, or use the browser back button, the chat window state
persists as long as you have not minimized the chat.Important:By default, pinning a chat window is enabled for Service Portal. For all other portals, an admin needs to create a system property to enable pinning a chat window. For more information, see Now Assist in Virtual Agent system properties.
: Selecting the down arrow minimizes the chat and the chat widget button reappears.
The Now Assist sub-header consists of four elements. The following figure and table shows an example and description of those elements.
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
1. Chats ( ) |
All chats appear. Chats are organized with the most recent conversations at the top. Selecting a chat opens the chat in the conversation area. If there are unread chats or notifications, a badge number appears on the Chats icon (
|
| 2. [Chat name] |
The name of the conversation. If you select a promoted asset or query, that asset's title appears as the chat name. If instead you enter an utterance into the Reply to Now Assist field, your initial utterance becomes the chat name. The chat name appears in both the Now Assist subheader and section. |
3. New chat ( ) |
A new conversation begins. You may be prompted with a greeting message along with any promoted conversational assets such as topics, subflows, and/or actions, or suggested queries. |
| 4. Support and settings ( |
Support contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses are listed. If live agents are available, an active Contact Live Agent button is displayed. Although multiple active conversations are possible, you can only have one live agent conversation at a time. Selecting Contact Live Agent begins a chat with a live agent. After a live agent enters the chat, the Contact Live Agent button becomes inactive. If live agents are unavailable, an inactive No live agents currently available button is displayed. Settings toggles for Audio notifications and Notifications appear. By default, audio notifications are turned on and notifications are turned off. If admins have enabled notifications within the guided setup, users can turn on the notifications. |
5. Interactive view ( or  ) |
Note:
This icon only appears in the sub-header whenever the interactive view is available. Open or close the interactive view. The interactive view appears towards the right of the conversational chat area. Interactive view is available whenever an organizational chart is an available option in a people citation popover. If multiple interactive views are available in the same conversation, for example, you opened multiple people's org charts in a conversation, a drop-down is available to switch between the different interactive views' tabs. |
). Confirm the chat deletion on the Delete this chat? modal to permanently delete the chat from the interface.Chatting with Virtual Agent
After the user enters an utterance and a search result is found, a synthesized response may appear. A synthesized response includes a brief summary of the requested information and search results along with Genius Results. For more information on how these search results are found, see Now Assist Actions Genius Results and Now Assist Q&A Genius Results.
If multiple results are found, you can follow inline citations to either begin an action or learn more. The option to Show sources appears at the end of the synthesized response for internal and external Knowledge Base articles. Virtual Agent can only return available catalog items that match a user's request when the Now Assist Multi-Turn Catalog Ordering skill is enabled.
Whenever only a single search result for topics is found, the synthesized response and options are bypassed by default and users are brought directly into that action's flow. You may consider bypassing the synthesized response and options by automatically launching catalog items, too. For more information on automatically launching single search result actions, search for the sn_nowassist_va.synthesized_autostart_items system property in Available system properties.
You can create a new query from within a Now Assist conversation using mid-topic discovery. For more information, see Mid-topic switching during Now Assist in Virtual Agent conversations.
If Now Assist Guardian is enabled and your request contains profane content, the Virtual Agent responds with a message prompting you to re-enter an appropriate request without profanity or offensive content. If your request is too ambiguous on the portal search, a synthesized response
appears along with an Ask a follow up option. Selecting the Ask a follow up option redirects you to a Virtual Agent chat. In the Virtual Agent chat, you can submit your follow-up question or request, but the synthesized response links are only available to select on the portal page and are unavailable to select in the chat window. If your
follow-up question or request is too ambiguous in the Virtual Agent chat, Virtual Agent asks a clarifying question and displays the go to search results icon (
) in the feedback panel.
If your question is unclear or could apply to multiple topics, Now Assist evaluates your request and may ask for clarification before responding. This helps you receive a focused, relevant answer rather than an overwhelming list of results. If the assistant is confident it understands your intent, it responds immediately without asking for clarification. If no relevant answer is found, the assistant displays a message and suggests an alternative, such as contacting support.
Processing messages are short status updates that appear on-screen while Now Assist works on your request. They reflect what Now Assist is actively doing at each step, such as searching for information or analyzing a document, and update as each step completes. Processing messages don’t appear for simple interactions such as greetings, which are handled instantly.
). If the response wasn't helpful, select the dislike thumbs down icon (
).
When you select the thumbs up or thumbs down icon, you are prompted to provide detailed feedback by selecting one or more reason check boxes. You can also select Other to
add comments or suggestions (up to 300 characters). After making your selection, select Submit to submit your feedback or select X to close the dialog without submitting feedback. All
submitted feedback is captured, stored, and made available through analytic dashboards.) may appear in the feedback icons panel. This icon appears alongside synthesized responses in Virtual Agent, clarifying questions in Virtual Agent, and regular search results or Virtual Agent fallback topics whenever a synthesized response is unavailable. Selecting the go to search results icon () redirects you to the search results page and begins a search query using the last five chat utterances you entered. Additionally, a copy message icon (
) appears on received Virtual Agent responses.Responses generated in Now Assist in Virtual Agent can come from a combination of catalog items, Virtual Agent topics, subflows and actions, knowledge articles, attachments, external content sources, and people citations. Inline citations appear at the end of the relevant synthesized response sentence. Selecting an inline citation results in a popover containing either a link to an article or source, or a description and action to start the action. The following options may appear as synthesized response in-line citations depending on what search results are returned:
Agentic conversations
When you submit a single question to the Virtual Agent, the agent understands the query and begins a flow. When you submit a message with multiple questions or requests, Virtual Agent answers the multiple questions consecutively in a response. It can reason, plan, and execute across AI agents, Virtual Agent topics, conversational actions and subflows, catalogs, Knowledge Base articles, custom skills, and any Now Assist in Virtual Agent supported skills to help you. Before receiving a response, you receive acknowledgment messages from the Virtual Agent and on-screen messages to let you know where the agent is at in the agentic processing flow. After the processing has completed its flow, a View AI Steps section header appears, where the processing
flow steps can be expanded and viewed. You can stop the agentic processing flow at anytime by selecting the End flow icon (
). After an action starts, it cannot be stopped. Selecting the End flow icon () only stops the proceeding processing steps.
Catalog citation
If you're accessing the catalog citation through the synthesized response popover, the popover options vary depending on where you’re located. The only popover option when in chat is the Start request option
which begins the catalog action within the chat. There are two popover options when you select the synthesized response through the portal's search bar: Request with form and Request in chat. Similar options also appear in the regular search results area, as indicated by the request in chat icon ( ) and request with form icon (). Depending on your selection, the catalog request flow launches within either the Virtual Agent chat or a form.
Topic, subflows, or actions citations
These assets are associated with the chat icon () and if selected, that flow begins within Virtual Agent. The popover is not applicable to these types of assets.
Q&A Knowledge Base citations
The answer is shown with the option to view your sources through the numbered inline citations icon (
) and in the Show sources section. These Knowledge Base inline citations show which ServiceNow knowledge articles were used to generate the response.
External content connections citations
) and in the Show sources section. If external search sources are added to your information sources when Configuring assistants overview, you can search through external content connections. This can include information from attachments and knowledge blocks, or from the following list of content connections:For more information about external content connections, see External Content Connectors.
People citations
Information about people in your organization can be found if you have activated Knowledge Graph.
Information about the person you're searching for appears in the synthesized response, along with an inline people citation. If a direct match doesn't occur and multiple people are found, try providing more information to narrow down the people search results. Up to three people can appear in a synthesized response. You may be asked a clarifying question, such as Are you asking about [user_1], the programmer, or [user_2], the faculty member? to yield better results. Selecting the person's name redirects you to the portal's user profile landing page.
Selecting the person's name presents a popover. The information in the popover can include the following information:
Although rare, when you receive a synthesized response that includes a person, you may also receive other citations associated with that person. For example, a Knowledge Base article that was authored by the person you searched for may also appear.
Extended entities and view records
Extended entity information can be found if you have activated Knowledge Graph.
These extended entities that come from the additional custom tables associated with the Knowledge Graph natural language query (NLQ) schema can include:
Select an entity in-line citation to view that entity record in a new tab, or select View records to view a list of additional entities. Selecting a link from the View records pop-up opens a new tab with that entity table's data.
The following example is of a conversation showing 3 out of 11 incidents and the option to view records to view additional users and incident records.
Chatting with a live agent in Virtual Agent
You can chat with a live agent if you need more support. Select the Contact Live Agent button found in the Support and settings () option, enter a request such as Chat with live agent into the chat, or select the Request a live agent fallback option. After an agent has accepted your chat, the agent's name
and avatar appears at the top of the chat in a banner. Only one live agent chat at a time is permitted. To exit the live chat, select End live chat. The chat history then moves to the Closed chat section.