Managing AI agents in Assistant Designer

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 24, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Managing AI agents in Assistant Designer

    ServiceNow customers can view and manage AI agents created in AI Agent Studio through Assistant Designer, streamlining AI agent interaction within virtual assistants. AI agents cannot be created or edited directly in Assistant Designer or Virtual Agent Designer; these actions require AI Agent Studio access. Assistant Designer serves primarily as a viewing and activation interface for AI agents.

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    Access to AI agents and related features depends on your ServiceNow license. Activating the Now Assist Topics skill updates the Assistant Designer UI, enhancing usability when managing AI agents.

    Key Features

    • AI Agent Viewing: List AI agents with details such as name, type, status, activity state, last modified date, and description.
    • Visibility Controls: Toggle AI agents’ Promoted, Discoverable, Visible, and Active statuses to control how and when AI agents appear in virtual assistant conversations.
    • Assistant Selection for Promotion: Promote AI agents to suggest them as conversational assets within selected virtual assistants.
    • Activation Management: Enable AI agents to be discoverable and active within chosen virtual assistants through channel and status settings in AI Agent Studio.
    • Role Requirement: Managing AI agents in Assistant Designer requires the virtualagentadmin role.

    Practical Usage and Configuration

    To make an AI agent available in Assistant Designer and virtual assistants, customers must:

    • Open the AI agent in AI Agent Studio.
    • Navigate to the "Select channels and status" tab.
    • Activate the toggle under "Engage via Virtual Agent assistants".
    • Select the specific chat assistants where the AI agent should be discoverable.

    Note that deleting AI agents must be performed exclusively in AI Agent Studio, not Assistant Designer.

    Integration with Virtual Agent Topics

    AI agents can be integrated into Virtual Agent topics using custom AI agent skills to perform tasks such as compiling knowledge base information, supporting enhanced conversational workflows.

    View AI agents created in AI Agent Studio through Assistant Designer.

    Note:
    Depending on your license, you will have access to certain application features, generative AI skills, agentic workflows, and AI agents. For more information, see ServiceNow product tiers.
    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.

    Role required: virtual_agent_admin

    When you select an AI agent, it opens in AI Agent Studio. AI agents currently can't be created or edited in Virtual Agent Designer. You can only view them in Assistant Designer. They can be created, edited, tested, and deleted only in AI Agent Studio. For more details, see AI Agent Studio.

    AI agents in Assistant Designer

    Select the AI agents option to see all the AI agents activated for Assistant Designer.

    AI agents in Assistant Designer's Asset library.

    Column Description
    Name Name of the AI agent. Select the AI agent to open it in AI Agent Studio.
    Type AI agent.
    Status Status type such as Published.
    Active Whether the AI agent is active or inactive.
    Last modified Time when the AI agent was last modified.
    Description Description of the AI agent.

    Use the row actions icon ( ) to work with visibility settings for Promoted, Discoverable, Visible, and Active:

    Option Description
    Promoted Option to toggle the AI agent's Promoted status to show as a suggested conversational asset in the virtual assistant.

    You must first select an assistant to promote the AI agent.
    Discoverable Option to toggle the AI agent's Discoverable status. If discoverable, the AI agent is invoked when matched with a user's utterance.
    Visible Option to toggle the AI agent's visibility to users. If visible, the AI agent appears whenever the Show me everything option is selected in the conversation.
    Active Option to toggle the AI agent's active status. If active, the AI agent is available within the conversation.
    Delete Delete option for AI agent is inactive in Assistant Designer. The AI agent can only be deleted from AI Agent Studio.

    AI agents become available in Assistant Designer based on the display settings in AI Agent Studio. To enable an AI agent to appear in Assistant Designer, perform the following:

    1. Navigate to All > AI Agent Studio > Create and manage.
    2. Select the AI agents tab, and open your chosen agent.
    3. Select the Select channels and status tab.
    4. In the Engage via Virtual Agent assistants card:
      • Activate the Allow toggle switch.
      • Under Choose chat assistants, select the assistants where the AI agent becomes discoverable.

      Virtual Agent card in an AI agent.

    For detailed information about creating AI agents, see Create an AI agent.