Assistant Designer Asset library

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated April 27, 2026
  • 6 minutes to read
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    Summary of Assistant Designer Asset library

    The Assistant Designer Asset library in ServiceNow's Virtual Agent Designer provides a centralized interface listing all LLM (Large Language Model) assets and NLU/Keyword topics available in your instance. It enables you to create, manage, test, and organize conversational topics, subflows, actions, custom skills, AI agents, and agentic workflows to enhance your virtual assistant capabilities. This content assumes that you have activated the Now Assist Topics skill, which provides an updated user interface for managing these assets.

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    Key Features

    • Navigation Header Bar: Allows efficient navigation between open topics and access to user preferences and Virtual Agent Designer settings. Tabs show topic type and scope, with grouping options by application scope for better organization.
    • Topic List Controls: Provide filtering and management options for LLM or NLU/Keyword topics. You can toggle between LLM and NLU topics, filter by assistants, and access different types of conversational assets such as subflows, actions, custom skills, AI agents, and workflows.
    • Testing Capabilities: You can test topics associated with an assistant using Standard Chat, Enhanced Chat, or Premium Chat options depending on your configuration, ensuring your virtual assistant performs as expected.
    • Search and Filter Functions: Facilitate quick location of topics and assets with text search and advanced filtering conditions.
    • Topic Records List: Displays detailed information about each topic including name, type, status, activity, description, and promotion status. You can toggle topic states such as Active, Promoted, Discoverable, and Visible directly from the list.
    • Side Panel: Provides access to recently opened topics, recent user activity, and helpful resources including localization insights, product documentation, and migration tools from NLU to LLM topics.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Centralized management of all conversational assets allows quick updates and improved organization of virtual agent topics and skills.
    • The ability to filter and test topics by assistant and chat experience ensures your virtual assistants deliver accurate and consistent interactions.
    • Easy toggling of topic visibility, promotion, and activation states helps control which assets are available to end users, enhancing user experience.
    • Access to migration tools and resources supports evolving your conversational design from traditional NLU to advanced LLM implementations.

    Next Steps

    To maximize the benefits of the Assistant Designer Asset library, ensure that the Now Assist Topics skill is activated in your instance. Utilize the filtering and testing features to maintain and improve your virtual agent’s conversational topics. Leverage the side panel for quick access to recent work and resources to stay updated on best practices and enhancements.

    The Assistant Designer Asset library lists all LLM assets and NLU/Keyword topics available in your instance. You can also create more topics, subflows, actions, custom skills, AI agents, and agentic workflows.

    Note:
    An updated Assistant Designer Asset library user interface is available when you install Now Assist in Virtual Agent and turn on the Now Assist Topics skill. This content assumes that you have activated this skill and can see the list view. If this skill is not activated, you see the legacy UI and topics page. For more information, see Virtual Agent Designer legacy topics page.

    To navigate to Virtual Agent Designer, select All > Conversational Interfaces > Virtual Agent > Designer.

    Figure 1. Topics page
    Assistant Designer Asset library page view with 4 highlighted sections. For more information, see the Options in the Asset library table.
    Table 1. Options in the Asset library
    Sections Fields and descriptions
    1. Navigation header bar Header bar for navigation and Virtual Agent Designer settings.
    • Assistant Designer tab: Select this tab while viewing a topic in the Virtual Agent Designer canvas to return to the Assistant Designer Asset library page
    • Topic tabs: Shows any open topics as navigation tabs. Hover over a tab to show its topic type and scope. Select a topic's tab to view that topic. Select the close icon on a tab to close the topic.
      Note:
      If you close a topic with unsaved changes, a warning window opens. Select Cancel or Close without saving.
      If you open more tabs than your browser window can display, a drop-down tab holding the overflowing topics appears on the header bar. Select the drop-down tab followed by the topic that you want to view.
    • User preferences: Icon to access preferences and settings. Hover on the icon to see user name and roles. Select the icon to shows Virtual Agent Designer settings for the home page. Toggle Group tabs by app scope in the settings window to group or ungroup tabs by their application scope.
      Note:
      Each group of tabs has a random color when you group tabs by app scope.
      For more information on changing the scope, see Change the application scope for Virtual Agent Designer topics.
    2. Topic list controls Controls for filtering, managing, testing, creating, and deleting Virtual Agent topics.
    • LLM or NLU/keyword toggle switch: Use this switch to select between LLM or NLU/keyword discovery type topic lists.
      • LLM controls:
        • Select Assistant: Drop-down menu to filter topics associated with a given LLM assistant.
          Note:
          Hover over the tooltip icon () to see information about the assistant you have selected from the drop-down menu.
        • Test Assistant: Opens the testing window for the topics that are associated with the assistant you selected.

          You can use three testing options: Standard Chat, Enhanced Chat, or Premium chat. 
If you configured either Enhanced Chat or Premium Chat for your instance, you can use that test option. 
If you configured both Enhanced and Premium chat, you can choose between the two. 
If you configured Standard Chat, you can choose from all three options.

          You can see which chat experiences an assistant has by checking Display experiences under the assistant's Settings tab. For more information on assistants and testing options, see Testing Now Assist enhanced chat conversations and Display your assistant on a portal, channel, or mobile app.

          Note:
          If you have not filtered topics with Select assistant, the option Test in Now Assist panel appears in this drop-down menu. For more information on associating an LLM assistant with a topic, see Create a Virtual Agent topic.
        • All assets: Button to view all LLM topics.
        • Topics: Button to view only basic LLM topics.
        • Subflows: Button to view only conversational subflows.
        • Actions: Button to view only conversational actions.
        • Custom skills: Button to view custom skills from Now Assist Skill Kit.
      • AI agents: Button to view list of AI agents. For more information, see Explore Now Assist AI agents.
      • Agentic workflows: Button to view list of Agentic workflows. For more information, see Now Assist agentic workflows.
      • NLU controls:

        ○ Test active topics: Button to test all active NLU/keyword topics.

    • Create Asset: Button to create a new Virtual Agent topic. For more information, see Create a Virtual Agent topic.
    • Search icon : Opens a field to enter a string to search for a match in the topic list. When you enter a string, the text is used as a condition in the Filter.
    • Filter icon : Opens a menu to add filtering conditions that contain a field, operator, and value(s). If you define a condition or enter a string using the Search button, you can remove it by selecting the delete condition icon.
    • Refresh list icon : Refreshes the currently defined list of topics.
    • Edit columns icon: Opens a menu to reorder or change the columns in the topic records list from their defaults.
    3. Topic records list List of all topics available, filtered by topic list controls. Default columns include the following.
    • Name: Name given to the topic when created.
    • Type: Indicates the topic types.
      • Topic
      • Topic block
      • Small talk
      • Custom input
      • Custom output
      • Action
      • Subflow
    • Status: Indicates the status of the topic:
      • Draft
      • Published
      • Modified
    • Active: Indicates whether the topic is Active or Inactive.
    • Last modified: Time and date when the topic was last modified.
    • Description: Short description entered when you create the topic. For more information, see Create a Virtual Agent topic.
    • Promoted in: Lists the assistants in which the asset is promoted.
    • Show actions for this row : Icon to open a menu with the following options.
      • Promoted: Option to toggle the topic's Promoted status. For more information, see Promote or demote LLM conversational subflows, actions, and topics in Virtual Agent Designer.
      • Discoverable: Option to toggle the topic's Discoverable status.
      • Visible: Option to toggle the topic's visibility to users.
      • Active: Option to toggle the topic's Active status.
      • Conversational Settings: Option to open a window with information on the asset.
        • Name: Name of the asset.
        • Asset type: Type of the asset.
        • Link to asset: Option to open a tab for the asset in Virtual Agent Asset library.
        • Description: Asset description used for topic discovery. This description is also shown in the asset's Properties tab and its Description value on the assets table on the Assistant Designer Asset library page.
        This option appears if you have selected LLM on the LLM and NLU/Keyword toggle switch.

        For more information, see Conversational settings for Assets in the Asset library.

      • Remove from assistant: Option to remove asset from an LLM assistant. You must first select an assistant from the Select assistant drop-down menu to filter assets. This option appears if you have selected LLM on the LLM and NLU/Keyword toggle switch.
      • Delete: Option to delete the topic.
        Note:
        If you select Delete, a dialog box opens. Select Delete to continue or Cancel to stop.

      A check mark appears next to any menu option when it is activated.

      Note:
      If the topic is inactive and you try to promote it or make it discoverable or visible, you see a message reading This asset must be active in order to be promoted, discoverable, or visible. Set the topic to Active under the Show actions for this row to perform those actions.
    4. Side panel Collapsible panel showing recently opened topics and helpful resources. Select the open or close panel icon / to toggle the panel open or closed.
    • Pick up where you left off: List of the last 3 topics you opened and when they were last updated. Select any from the list to open that topic.
    • Latest updates: List of the last 5 users to open a topic, along with the topic name and when it was last updated.
    • Resources: Links and features available for LLM or NLU topics. You can view localization insights, product documentation, and migrate NLU topics to LLM from here.
    Note:
    The Migrate topics to LLM option appears in the Resources section only if you have activated Now Assist in Virtual Agent.