Assess readiness

Release version: Australia

Updated March 26, 2026

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Summary of Assess readiness

This guide helps ServiceNow customers prepare their instances for AI agent deployment by verifying technical and organizational readiness, installing necessary applications, assigning roles, and correctly classifying user identities. Completing these steps early prevents issues during building and testing AI agents.

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Run the readiness evaluation

Activate the Now Assist Readiness Evaluation [snassess] plugin to automate checking your instance’s readiness for generative and agentic AI deployment.
The evaluation identifies configuration gaps, data readiness issues, and customizations that could impact your implementation, providing direct links to resolve problems.
Important: Do not proceed with AI agent building until all blocking issues from the evaluation are resolved.

Install required applications

Ensure the Now Assist Admin Console [snnowassistadmin] application is installed. This app provides key roles such as nsaadmin and datasteward.
Installation requires a ServiceNow Pro Plus or Enterprise Plus license and AI Search enabled.
Review the ServiceNow Store listing for full dependency and licensing details before installation.

Assign roles

After installing required applications, assign these roles to users involved in AI agent development and management:

snaia.admin: For creating, configuring, and managing AI agents and workflows.
snnowassistadmin.nsaadmin: For configuring admin settings, guardrails, and privacy policies.
sngenerativeai.datasteward: For data sharing decisions and privacy configurations; assign before setting up data protection controls.

Refer to the Now Assist Admin roles documentation for a complete role list.

Classify user identity types

The AI platform uses the Identity type field on the User [sysuser] table to differentiate between human users, AI agent users, and machine accounts, which is critical for proper access control and role masking:

Set dedicated AI user accounts to AI Agent.
Existing human users default to Unclassified until updated.
Records marked as web service accounts are automatically classified as Machine.

Next step

Once your instance passes the readiness evaluation and roles are assigned, proceed to Plan your agent to begin building AI agents effectively.

Verify that your instance is prepared for AI agent deployment, install the required applications, assign the required roles, and classify user identity types before you begin building.

Before building an AI agent, verify that your instance meets the technical and organizational requirements for deployment. Identifying and resolving gaps now helps to prevent blockers during the build and testing stages.

Run the readiness evaluation

The Now Assist Readiness Evaluation app automates the process of checking whether your instance is ready for generative AI and agentic AI deployment. It identifies configuration gaps, data readiness issues, and customizations that could affect your implementation, and provides direct links to resolve each issue. Activate the Now Assist Readiness Evaluation [sn_assess] plugin to use this feature. Learn more about this evaluation at Now Assist Readiness Evaluation.

Important:

Don't proceed until all blocking issues identified by the readiness evaluation have been resolved.

Install required applications

Verify that the following application is installed on your instance before proceeding.

Now Assist Admin Console [sn_nowassist_admin]: Provides the sn_nowassist_admin.nsa_admin and sn_generative_ai.data_steward roles. Install from the ServiceNow Store. See .

Note:

Now Assist Admin Console requires a ServiceNow Pro Plus or Enterprise Plus license and AI Search enabled on your instance. Review the application listing in the ServiceNow Store for full dependency and licensing requirements before installing.

Assign roles

Once the required applications are installed, assign the following roles to the people who will build, configure, and manage AI agents.

sn_aia.admin: Required to create, configure, and manage AI agents and agentic workflows in AI Agent Studio.
sn_nowassist_admin.nsa_admin: Required to configure Now Assist Admin settings, activate guardrails, and manage privacy policies.
sn_generative_ai.data_steward: Required to make data sharing decisions and configure privacy policies. Assign this role before configuring data protection settings in Configure security controls.

For a full list of roles installed with Now Assist, see Now Assist Admin roles.

Classify user identity types

The ServiceNow AI Platform uses the Identity type field on the User [sys_user] table to distinguish between human users, AI agent users, and machine accounts. Classifying users correctly before you build ensures that your access control and role masking configuration works as intended.

For any dedicated AI user accounts your agents will run as, set the Identity type to AI Agent. Existing human user records default to Unclassified until updated. Records with the web service account flag set to true are automatically classified as Machine.

Next step

When your instance passes the readiness evaluation and roles are assigned, proceed to Plan your agent.