Now Assist AI Agents release notes

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 30, 2026
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of Now Assist AI Agents release notes

    The Now Assist AI Agents application in the Australia release enhances ServiceNow’s capabilities by enabling AI agents to autonomously perceive, decide, and act toward specific goals without continuous human oversight. This release introduces new tools, improved agent controls, and enhanced integrations to optimize AI agent performance and user experience.

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    Key Features

    • AI Agent Management: Easily add or remove built-in AI agents or tools, and detect and disable runaway AI agent triggers to prevent unintended usage and resource consumption.
    • Knowledge Graph Tool Improvements: Supports conversation history by passing the last five conversational turns to enable follow-up questions referencing previous results.
    • Deny-by-Default Access Control: New agentic ACL types now enforce stricter security by default, limiting access for AI agent types unless explicitly allowed.
    • AI Agent Studio Skill Migration: Skills are automatically migrated to a more efficient off-glide execution path for improved performance.
    • AI-native Mode and Testing: Introduction of AI-native playground for testing agentic solutions and AI-native mode UI enhancements, requiring the Off Glide Conversation Server plugin.
    • Agentic Workflow Enhancements: Updates to workflows such as Generate resolution plans, Generate my work plan, and Process images to tasks, with additional admin configuration filters.
    • Agentic Evaluation and Issue Tracing: Automated evaluations provide detailed issue tracing and suggested optimizations to improve AI agent performance.
    • Voice Input Accessibility: Optional voice-to-text input for Now Assist panel enhances accessibility for users with mobility, vision, or language challenges.
    • Platform and Model Updates: Default LLM upgraded to GPT-5.4 for Azure OpenAI, with support for Amazon Bedrock and updated generative AI config properties.
    • External AI Agent Integration: Improvements to Agent2Agent protocol integration with updated authentication handling.

    Key Outcomes

    • Improved Control and Security: Prevent unintended AI consumption via runaway agent detection and enforce stricter access controls by default to protect data.
    • Enhanced User Experience: AI-native mode and conversation history support provide more natural, context-aware interactions; UI validation ensures data integrity for AI-driven record updates.
    • Simplified Skill Management: Automated skill migration and streamlined workflows reduce administrative overhead and improve AI agent efficiency.
    • Comprehensive Testing and Optimization: New testing playgrounds and evaluation tools help admins fine-tune AI agents, ensuring reliability and better outcomes.
    • Accessibility and Localization: Voice input support and GPT-4o-based localization make AI capabilities usable across diverse user needs and languages.
    • Integration and Extensibility: Compatibility with various ServiceNow AI applications and updated third-party LLM support enable broad AI use cases within the platform.

    Activation and Requirements

    Now Assist AI Agents require activation of any Now Assist plugin from the ServiceNow Store and installation of the compatible Now Assist AI Platform version. The Next Experience UI Framework must be enabled to utilize the Now Assist panel. Supported browsers include Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge; Internet Explorer is not supported.

    Practical Notes for ServiceNow Customers

    • To leverage AI-native mode features and testing playgrounds, ensure the Off Glide Conversation Server plugin is installed.
    • Enable the glide.airecordactivity.validation.feature.enabled property to apply UI validation on AI-initiated record updates for data quality.
    • Use the new kill switch feature to automatically disable agents triggered excessively on the same record, preventing cost overruns.
    • Take advantage of voice input for improved accessibility, especially for users with mobility or vision impairments.
    • Review agentic evaluation reports regularly to identify and apply suggested optimizations for AI agent workflows.
    • Note that manual integration of external agents is deprecated; use the Agent2Agent protocol integration instead.

    The ServiceNow® Now Assist AI Agents application provides solutions that can perceive the environment, decide, and proactively act to achieve specific goals without the need for constant human oversight. Now Assist AI Agents was enhanced and updated in the Australia release.

    Now Assist AI Agents highlights for the Australia release

    Australia Patch 2
    • Enable UI validation for agentic AI processes and Now Assist skills.
    Australia Patch 1
    • Test an agentic solution in the playground in AI-native mode.
    • Add widgets for tool outputs to provide an improved experience in AI-native mode.
    • Run improved Platform agentic workflows, including Generate resolution plans, Generate my work plan, and Process images to tasks.
    • Get more insights into agentic AI asset performance with issue tracing and suggested optimizations from results pages.

    See Now Assist AI agents for more information.

    For the Platform Now Assist release notes, see Now Assist release notes.

    Important:
    Now Assist AI agents are available in the ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.

    New in the Australia release

    Australia Patch 1
    Create an AI agent
    The AI-native experience for an AI agent is available exclusively with the installation of the Off Glide Conversation Server plugin (com.glide.cs.offglide).
    Note:
    To use the AI agent in AI-native mode, make sure to test it so it works as expected.
    Test an agentic solution in AI Native mode
    Use the AI Native playground experience to test your agentic solutions.
    Note:
    The AI-native playground experience is exclusively accessible when the Off Glide Conversation Server plugin (com.glide.cs.offglide) is installed. If the plugin is not installed, you will continue to access the standard testing playground.
    Add tools and information to an AI agent
    Add widgets for tool outputs to provide an improved experience in AI-native mode.
    Note:
    The display output widget options are exclusively accessible when the Off Glide Conversation Server plugin (com.glide.cs.offglide) is installed. If the plugin is not installed, you will continue to access the standard add tool form.

    UI changes

    Australia Patch 2
    Manually test the execution of an AI agent and Manually test the execution of an agentic workflow
    The AI Native radio button in the Choose a testing mode section on the AI agent and agentic workflow manual testing playgrounds has been renamed to Premium Chat.

    Changed in this release

    Australia Patch 2
    Enable UI validation for agentic AI processes and Now Assist skills
    The glide.ai_record_activity.validation.feature.enabled system property enables UI rule validation (such as required fields) for AI‑initiated record updates. You can selectively apply this validation based on execution context using additional system properties. For example, glide.ai_record_activity.ai_detection.nap.enabled applies validation to record updates triggered from the Now Assist panel. Similar properties control validation for AI skills, Virtual Agent, and agent‑initiated actions, as listed in the Reference for Now Assist AI agents. This feature is opt‑in and inactive by default.
    Create an external AI agent with the Agent2Agent protocol
    The agent to agent flow actions no longer inject an Authorization: Bearer header automatically. If your endpoint requires a Bearer token, include the prefix directly in the API Key credential value.
    Australia Patch 1
    Create an external AI agent with the Agent2Agent protocol
    Use the A2A Protocol integration for creating external agents in the AI Agent Studio to connect with the ServiceNow AI Platform.
    Updates to platform agentic workflows
    Several platform agentic workflows have seen updates to how they work and what configurations are available for AI admins. Analyze task trends and Identify ways to improve service now have post-analysis actions, including the option to download analysis and ask additional information. Generate my work plan can run as a scheduled job.
    Agentic evaluation offer issue tracing and suggested optimizations
    After an automated evaluation of an agentic AI asset, you can receive a list of issues and suggested optimizations to address those issues. Issues come with individual record node-by-node traces to pinpoint the exact source of problems. Optimizations are suggested, and you can apply them and run a reevaluation from a single guided flow.

    Deprecated features

    Australia Patch 1
    • The support for manually integrating external agents has been deprecated from Australia Patch 1 release.

    Activation information

    Now Assist AI agents are available with activation of any Now Assist plugin from the ServiceNow Store. For more information about the prerequisites for using Now Assist AI agents, see Install Now Assist AI agents.

    Additional requirements

    You must first install the supported Now Assist version of the ServiceNow AI Platform to be able to use Now Assist AI agents. For more information, see Install Now Assist AI agents.

    Next Experience UI Framework must be enabled before you can use the Now Assist panel.

    Browser requirements

    Now Assist AI agents support various browsers, including Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. Now Assist AI agents aren't supported in Internet Explorer.

    Accessibility information

    Voice Input for Now Assist AI agents
    Administrators can enable an optional voice input setting for the Now Assist panel in the Now Assist Admin console. This feature gives users a voice-to-text input option to access the Now Assist skills in the panel in any supported language. For more information, see Enable voice input for Now Assist panel.
    After enabled, the Enable voice input for the Now Assist panel option is available in individual user accessibility preferences. See Configure Next Experience accessibility preferences for more information.
    Voice-to-text input can help users with mobility impairments access generative AI skills without using a keyboard. This feature can also be useful to blind or low-vision users, neurodivergent users, non-native language speakers, or mobile users on the go, such as field service agents.

    Localization information

    The Now Assist AI agents application is built on the GPT-4o-based framework and supports localization according to the GPT-4o model.

    Related ServiceNow applications and features

    Now Assist panel

    With the ServiceNow®Now Assist panel, you can get assistance from generative AI experiences to solve customer issues faster. Use this conversational interface to summarize a chat, case, or incident, get help, or generate resolution notes so that you can get the context of this information more quickly.

    Generative AI Controller
    The ServiceNow® Generative AI Controller lets you integrate third-party LLM (large language models) with your workflows.
    AI Search
    The ServiceNow® AI Search application provides a consumer-grade search engine for Service Portal, Now Mobile, and Virtual Agent. Intelligent query features help you quickly find the answers you need.
    Now Assist Skill Kit
    Use the ServiceNow® Now Assist Skill Kit to create and publish custom prompts and skills for Now Assist. Creating custom skills and prompts enables you to have greater flexibility with Now Assist generative AI capabilities.