AI Search in Service Portal

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated April 23, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of AI Search in Service Portal

    AI Search in Service Portal enhances the search experience by enabling intelligent query features that help portal users quickly find relevant answers. Unlike the legacy Zing search, AI Search provides advanced capabilities such as auto-complete, natural language understanding, typo handling, and personalized, actionable search results.

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    Key Features

    • Flexible Search: Supports auto-complete, natural language queries, and typo correction to improve search accuracy and ease of use.
    • Relevant and Actionable Results: Returns personalized results based on user context such as role, location, department, assets, and search history. Includes "genius results" which allow users to take direct actions from the search results list.
    • Intelligent Search Refinement: Allows users to filter and refine search results dynamically using facets and tab filters to narrow down results by categories like hardware or user profiles.

    Activation and Compatibility

    AI Search is a default feature of the ServiceNow AI Platform and is enabled by default for new and zBoot customers in the Australia release. Existing customers upgrading to Australia must manually enable it via the portal record. Custom or cloned search widgets from earlier versions may require a fix script to ensure compatibility with AI Search.

    Configuration

    • Search Application Configuration: Set search engine preferences, limits on results and suggestions.
    • Search Results Configuration: Define how search results are displayed through composite datasets.
    • Widget Integration: AI Search powers various widgets including Homepage Search, Typeahead Search, Faceted Search, Catalog Homepage Search, and Knowledge Breadcrumbs.
    • Search Results Actions: Configure navigation to appropriate portal pages upon selecting search results and set up action buttons in genius results using Entity View Action Mapping (EVAM).
    • Theming: Customize the look and feel of AI Search by modifying CSS variables to align with company branding.

    Browser Support

    Users must log in to the portal using supported browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge (Chromium), or Apple Safari to access AI Search features.

    Configure the ServiceNow AI Search application for Service Portal so that portal users can take advantage of intelligent query features and quickly find the answers they need.

    AI Search features

    Flexible search

    Unlike the legacy Zing search that was used in previous releases, AI Search provides enhanced search capabilities. Portal users can find answers with features like auto-complete search queries, natural language support, and typo handling.

    Figure 1. Search suggestions
    Search suggestions example.
    Figure 2. Typo handling
    Typo handling example.
    Relevant and actionable search results

    With AI Search enabled in Service Portal, the portal search engine captures information about the user — such as their role, location, department, assets, and search history — and returns search results that are relevant and personalized.

    AI Search also includes genius results that enables users to take action directly from the search results list.

    Figure 3. Genius result
    Genius result example.
    Intelligent search refinement

    Portal users can refine their search results using dynamic and static filters. For example, if a user searches Mac, they can use facets to filter search results by hardware or user profiles.

    Figure 4. Search facets
    Search facets example
    Figure 5. Tab filters
    Tab filters example

    For more information on using facets and tabs, see Faceted Search widget.

    For more information on AI Search features, see Exploring AI Search.

    Activation information

    AI Search is a ServiceNow AI Platform feature that is active by default.

    AI Search is enabled in Service Portal for all new and zBoot customers by default.

    If you're upgrading to Australia as an existing customer, AI Search is inactive in Service Portal by default. You can enable it by updating the portal record. For more information, see Enable and configure AI Search in Service Portal.

    Note:
    Search widgets that you copied or customized before a system upgrade may not be compatible with AI Search. You can resolve this issue by running a fix script that reclassifies search widget instances. For more information, see Reclassify cloned or customized search widgets.

    Configuring AI Search for Service Portal

    Configure AI Search in Service Portal by defining the following:
    Search application configuration
    Defines search experience settings, such as the search engine, search results limit, and suggestions limit. For more information on defining a search application configuration, see Defining search application configurations.
    Search results configuration
    Defines how search results are displayed. For more information on defining a search results configuration, see Define a composite dataset.

    You can change the search application configuration or search results configuration that your portal uses by updating the portal record. For more information, see Enable and configure AI Search in Service Portal.

    To use a different search application or search results configuration for a specific search widget, update the widget instance options. AI Search is used in the following widgets:

    To configure the search results payload to navigate to and display the appropriate portal page for a selected data source, define an AI Search results action. For more information, see Define an AI Search Results Action.

    You can configure the action buttons in genius results by defining an Entity View Action Mapping (EVAM) action. For more information, see Define an EVAM action.

    You can customize the look and feel of the AI Search experience in Service Portal by updating the relevant CSS variables. For more information on these variables, see Theming for AI Search in Service Portal.

    Browser support

    With AI Search enabled in Service Portal, users must log in with a browser such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge (Chromium), or Apple Safari.