Now Assist Conversational Help

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Now Assist Conversational Help

    Now Assist Conversational Help leverages Generative AI capabilities to provide contextual answers directly within the Now Assist panel. Available by default for appropriate roles and included with existing Now Assist entitlements, this skill enables users to quickly get help without needing additional subscriptions. It appears as theGet Helpfeature on the Now Assist panel and can be managed through the Now Assist Admin Settings.

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    Note that starting with the Australia release, Conversational Help Skills is being prepared for future deprecation: it will no longer activate on new instances but will continue to be supported in existing environments.

    How Conversational Help Works

    When a user submits a query via the Get Help skill, the process to generate the response involves several steps:

    • AI Search: The query is sent to a central ServiceNow instance where AI Search looks through synchronized product documentation content stored in the knowledge table. This content is replicated from Now Support instances using Instance Data Replication (IDR).
    • Re-ranking: The Now Assist Q&A feature re-ranks the retrieved content chunks for improved relevance.
    • Cache Lookup: If a cached answer exists for the query, it is returned immediately. Otherwise, the query and ranked content are sent to the Now LLM to generate a precise, meaningful answer.

    The generated response is then displayed within the Now Assist panel for quick access.

    Key Details for ServiceNow Customers

    • Results are tailored to the release version of the user’s current instance, ensuring responses reflect the latest updates and features.
    • Multiple central ServiceNow instances across US East/West, EMEA, and APJC regions handle AI Search queries for optimized performance.
    • No new subscription is required to use the Get Help feature as it is part of existing Now Assist entitlements.
    • Customers can enhance their experience by installing the External Content Connectors Application Suite from the ServiceNow store and using NAp Synthesized Search with ServiceNow Docs.

    This skill uses Generative AI application capabilities to provide answers to the questions on the Now Assist panel.

    Important:
    Starting with the Australia release, Conversational Help Skills is being prepared for future deprecation. It will be hidden and no longer activated on new instances but will continue to be supported. For details, see the Deprecation Process article [KB0867184] in the Now Support Knowledge Base.

    You can install the External Content Connectors Application Suite from the ServiceNow store

    and use NAp Synthesized Search with ServiceNow Docs.
    Important:
    This generative AI skill is turned on by default. The skill will be automatically available to appropriate role users for the application. For more information, see Now Assist skills, agents, and agentic workflows on by default.
    The Now Assist Conversational Help skill displays as Get Help on the Now Assist panel.
    Note:
    The Get Help feature is available as a part of Now Assist entitlements and no new subscription is required. The feature is enabled by default and you can turn it off in the Now Assist Admin Settings.

    How Conversational Help works

    You can ask your question by selecting Get Help skill and submit a query to use the help option in the Now Assist panel. Your query goes through the following steps to retrieve the best response.
    Note:
    Conversational Help Skills is not available as auto-discoverable as a help skill within Now Assist panel.
    1. AI search

      The query is be sent to a central ServiceNow instance, where AI Search will search the knowledge table that stores content from product doc content.

      We use Instance Data Replication (IDR) that synchronizes product documentation content from Now Support instances.
      Note:
      Multiple central ServiceNow instances are deployed across three regions: US East or US West, EMEA, and APJC.
    2. The top matching chunks (or records) along with the user’s query, are sent to the Now Assist Q&A Genius Result configuration to generate a meaningful, contextual answer.
    3. Re-ranking

      The Now Assist Q&A, an out of box (OOB) capability, re-ranks the retrieved chunks to ensure better relevance.

    4. Cache lookup
      • If the user query exists in the cache, the pre-stored answer is returned.
      • If the query is not cached, the query and re-ranked chunks are sent to Now LLM to generate a meaningful answer.
    The Now LLM retrieves the most relevant result from https://www.servicenow.com/docs/ portal and displays it in the same panel.
    Note:
    Effective from this release, the query will retrieve results based exclusively on the release version of the user's current instance. This enhancement is integrated into the query process to ensure the delivery of precise results that reflect the latest updates and features.

    Now Assist Conversational Help skill

    For more information, see Fetch end points in Now Assist Conversational Help skills.