Enhanced chat

Now Assist panel 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. Use Now Assist panel enhanced chat to improve your productivity and efficiency by leveraging generative AI to perform tasks such as summarize a chat, case, or incident, request help, generate resolution notes, among others.

Note:

Please note these important considerations:

• Next Experience must be enabled to use the Now Assist panel. For more information, see Considerations for activating Next Experience.
• To use the full capabilities of Now Assist panel enhanced chat, AI Search must be enabled for your portal. Without it, Now Assist panel enhanced chat functions in a limited capacity. Basic conversational interactions such as predefined topic flows and simple questions and answers are available, but knowledge article retrieval, AI responses grounded in instance content, and semantic search capabilities require AI Search. For more information, see Enable and configure AI Search in Service Portal.

Now Assist panel enhanced chat overview

Agents can use the Now Assist panel enhanced chat to interact with and get assistance from generative AI. 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.

Now Assist panel enhanced chat must be activated before you can use it. See Activate Now Assist panel enhanced chat for more information. Now Assist skills must be enabled to appear on the Now Assist panel. For more information, see Now Assist skills.

Conversational aspects of the Now Assist panel, such as skill detection, are powered by Now LLM Service.

Let's get started by selecting the Now Assist icon to display the Now Assist panel.

Figure 1. Now Assist panel

The Now Assist panel includes:

Item number	Description
1 -	Expands the chat into a 90% screen-size window. The 90% screen-size window can’t be resized or moved. Selecting the icon again resizes the chat back into the floating window.
2 -	Positions, or pins, the Now Assist panel to the screen.
3 - Option buttons	Displays the available options.
4 - Reply to Now Assist...	Enter actions.
5 - Now Assist message	Indicates that the answers are generated by AI.
6 - Active chats	All active chats display in the Active chats section. in the Active chats section of the Now Assist. You can create additional chats by selecting the + icon in the heading.
7 - Closed chats	Displays all closed chats. If you select a closed chat, the chat's history displays.

Note:

The copy message button is not available on the Now Assist panel enhanced chat.

The Now Assist subheader consists of these elements:

Table 1. Now Assist subheader 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 (). Any unread chat or notification appears with a red dot next to it and the chat title appears in bold. Additionally, if you switch to a new chat while another active chat is ongoing, a pop-up message on the Chats icon () appears: Your previous chat was saved. You can revisit all of your past chats and continue ones that are still active. The following list includes the chat sections that you may see in the chats area. Active: Chats where you can continue the conversation. If applicable, active chats move to the Closed chats section after two hours of inactivity. This 2 hour time limit can be configured within the Messaging Channels {sys_cs_channel.list} table. To change the inactivity time limit, from the Messaging Channels {sys_cs_channel.list} table, select the NASS record and populate the Conversation Idle Timeout field with your preferred active chat time limit. If you have no active chats, No chatter at the moment is displayed. If more than 12 active chats are running, a Show more link appears to view more chats. Selecting Show more displays an additional 10 chats. Updates: Updates for important notifications and reminders can be configured to display. When sn_nowassist_va.nass_notification_enabled is set to true (the default), simple (nonactionable) Now Assist panel notifications appear on your portal home page. After selecting a notification, you’re redirected to this Updates section. If you have no updates, You're all caught up is displayed. If more than four updates are available, a Show more link appears to view more updates. Selecting Show more displays an additional 10 updates. Note: If sn_nowassist_va.nass_notification_enabled is set to false, the Updates section doesn't appear. Closed: Closed chats can be configured to display. A message closes when the designated time has passed (2 hours of inactivity) or you receive the following response in the chat: It looks like you're finished with this chat, so I'll go ahead and close it. Turn on closed chats by selecting the Show closed chats check box within Conversational Interfaces > Assistants > [Selected Assistant Name] > Chat experience > Closed chats. After being turned on, closed chats are displayed for as long as they’re available within the Conversations (sys_cs_conversation) table. Closed chats appear in a read-only mode and can’t become active again. If more than four closed chats are available, a Show more link appears to view more closed chats. Selecting Show more displays an additional 10 closed chats. After a conversation has closed, you can’t reopen it. Hovering over a closed chat displays the delete icon (). Confirm the chat deletion on the Delete this chat? modal to permanently delete the chat from the interface.
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 Chats list > Active 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.

Now Assist panel is available on Next Experience and ServiceNow Studio. The following screenshots show the Now Assist panel in a workspace and on Core UI screens under Next Experience.

Table 2. Now Assist panel

Next Experience	Core UI

Agentic conversations

Note:

Admins must first enable AI agents before end users can experience agentic conversations. Now Assist panel discovers and executes agentic workflows. For more information on agentic workflows, see Now Assist agentic workflows and Multiple conversations in Now Assist AI agents.

When you ask a question to the Now Assist panel enhanced chat, the agent understands the query and begins a flow. When you submit a message with multiple questions or requests, Now Assist panel enhanced chat answers the multiple questions consecutively in its response. It can reason, plan, and execute across AI agents, Now Assist panel topics, conversational actions and subflows, catalogs, Knowledge Base articles, custom skills, and any Now Assist supported skills to help you. You receive on-screen messages to let you know where the agent is in the agentic processing flow prior to receiving the response. 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 any time by selecting the End flow icon (). After an action starts, it can't be stopped. Selecting the End flow icon only stops the proceeding processing steps.

Navigating from the Now Assist panel

You can navigate from the Now Assist panel without leaving the current conversation by entering a navigation request in the Ask Now Assist to... field. If you enter "navigate me to active incidents," Now Assist displays a button that enables you to view the active incidents.

Chat summarization

Quickly learn the details of a chat by reading a chat summarization. The chat summarization gives you enough details about the chat so that your requester doesn't have to repeat the same information to you.

To generate a chat summarization from the Now Assist panel, select Chat Summarization or enter summarize chat in the Ask Now Assist to field.

Note:

You can also generate a chat summarization by using the /summarize quick action in Agent Chat.

For more information about chat summarization, see Now Assist skills.

Case or incident summarization

Quickly learn the details of a case or incident by reading a case summarization. The summarization gives you enough details about the interaction so that your requester doesn't have to repeat the same information to you.

You can generate a case or incident summarization from the Now Assist panel for Now Assist for CSM, Now Assist for HRSD, or Now Assist for ITSM:

• For Now Assist for CSM, select Summarize record or enter summarize a record in the Ask Now Assist to field.
• For Now Assist for HRSD, select Summarize record or enter summarize a record in the Ask Now Assist to field.
• For Now Assist for ITSM, select Summarize incident or enter summarize an incident in the Ask Now Assist to field.

For more information about case or incident summarization, see Now Assist skills.

Conversation Help

Get specific and accurate answers to your queries by using the Get Help skill option on the Now Assist panel. This skill is available to everyone entitled to Now Assist capabilities.

For more information about the Now Assist Conversational Help skill that represents as Get Help on the Now Assist panel, see Now Assist Conversational Help.

Resolution notes generation

Quickly learn the details of how an interaction was resolved by generating and reading resolution notes.

To generate resolution notes from the Now Assist panel, select Generate resolutions notes or enter generate resolutions notes in the Ask Now Assist to field.

For more information about generating resolution notes, see Now Assist skills.

Streaming responses

After you enter a question or request on the Now Assist panel, Now Assist gathers information from Knowledge Base articles, external content, product documentation, catalog items, and workflows and combines them into a synthesized, comprehensive answer. Instead of waiting for the entire message to render, the synthesized response streams in real time and stops streaming after the entire message has been delivered. An animated sparkle icon () appears while the response is generated and changes to the static sparkle icon after the response has fully loaded.