AI Search release notes

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated February 6, 2026
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of AI Search Release Notes

    The ServiceNow® AI Search application has been enhanced in the Zurich release to provide a consumer-grade search experience. Key updates focus on improving search precision, user experience, and indexing capabilities, which are crucial for delivering relevant search results to users.

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    Key Features

    • Hybrid Search: Available for customers with Now Assist in AI Search, this feature combines keyword-based and semantic search for improved accuracy and relevance.
    • Updated User Experience: Enhanced search portals, global search, and workspace search interfaces for a more intuitive navigation.
    • Language Filtering: External content search results can now be filtered by the user's session language, improving relevance.
    • Search Result Customization: New properties for EVAM cards allow customization of display settings for search results.
    • Accessibility Enhancements: The new Coral theme includes a dark mode to improve user experience.

    Key Outcomes

    Customers upgrading to the Zurich release should run full document crawls for external content connectors to update their semantic vector indexing. Expect improved search behavior, greater user satisfaction due to a more intuitive design, and enhanced capabilities for filtering and indexing diverse content types, leading to more effective and relevant search outcomes.

    The ServiceNow® AI Search application provides a consumer-grade search experience for ServiceNow AI Platform® users. AI Search was enhanced and updated in the Zurich release.

    AI Search highlights for the Zurich release

    Zurich Patch 4
    • Improve search precision and contextual relevance with hybrid search, available for customers with Now Assist in AI Search installed.
    • Gain insights into search behavior with a refreshed and updated Search Preview UI.
    Zurich Patch 1
    • Search more intuitively with an updated, consumer-grade user experience in search portals, global search, and workspace search.
    Zurich Early Availability
    • Improve search precision by displaying external content search results in languages configured for the user's search session.
    • Increase search recall by indexing searchable content and metadata from Multiple Choice and Select Box variables in records on the Catalog Item table and its child tables.

    See AI Search for more information.

    Important information for upgrading AI Search to Zurich

    After you upgrade to Zurich from an earlier family release, run full document crawls in all your external content connectors to update their semantic vector indexing field mappings.

    New in the Zurich release

    Zurich Patch 4
    Improve search precision and contextual relevance with hybrid search
    Beginning with Now Assist in AI Search 15.0, customers with Now Assist in AI Search installed can enable the new hybrid search mode. Hybrid search combines keyword-based search with semantic understanding to deliver more accurate and relevant search results, with fewer zero-result searches.
    Zurich Patch 1
    Improve semantic search with third-party embedding models
    Use custom and third-party embedding models supported by the AI Search RAG application to generate more accurate and relevant semantic search results.
    Zurich Early Availability
    Filter external content search results by language
    AI Search filters external content search results, displaying only results that contain content in languages relevant for the user's search. These languages include:
    • The search user's session language
    • The fallback language for the user's session language (if configured)
    • The language of the global fallback locale (if configured)
    Indexing support for variables in records on Catalog Item and child tables
    Index searchable content from Multiple Choice and Select Box variables in records on the Catalog Item table and tables that extend it.
    New display properties for Search Result EVAM cards
    Search Result EVAM cards include new customIcon, customIconSize, forceNewTab, and useAttachmentViewer properties that you can use to modify display settings and behavior for search results.

    UI changes

    Zurich Early Availability
    Coral theme
    Coral is now the default theme for new portal, web, and mobile experiences with Next Experience or Core UI enabled. This theme provides a fresh look and feel, featuring brand-neutral illustrations to enhance your user experience. A dark theme option is available for web and mobile experiences.

    Changed in this release

    Zurich Patch 4
    Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Results
    If you have Now Assist in AI Search installed, Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Results are supported in global and workspace search. Activating Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Results in global or workspace search profiles overrides all other Genius Result configurations, so that global and workspace searches only display Genius Result answers from Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Results. Virtual Agent topic citations from Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Result answers in global or workspace search open the selected topic in the Now Assist panel so the user can continue their conversation on that topic.
    Search Suggestions
    Search administrators with the ais_admin granular admin role can access all Search Suggestions tables. Assign search administrators this role to eliminate needless propagation of full admin access.
    Gain insights into search behavior with a refreshed and updated Search Preview UI.
    Preview search query results using settings from a search application configuration or a search profile. Choose between keyword and hybrid search modes. Display search results as individual EVAM cards or as a JSON-format search query response object, with search and syntax highlighting. Review search query behavior and results and specify search query settings with the new Summary, Genius Results, Details, and Profile admin tools.
    Zurich Patch 1
    Consumer-grade search experience for search portals
    The search results page for search portals has been revised to offer a more intuitive and consistent experience. Navigation tabs have been replaced with source facet buckets. All search results now open in a new browser tab, preserving your search in the existing browser tab. Facet buckets now show minimum search result counts, reflecting results removed by late binding content security. Search terms are no longer highlighted in search results.
    Consumer-grade search experience for global search and workspace search
    The search results page for global search and workspace search has been revised to offer a more intuitive and consistent experience. Navigation tabs have been replaced with source facet buckets. All search results now open in a new browser tab, preserving your search in the existing browser tab. Facet buckets now show minimum search result counts, reflecting results removed by late binding content security. A new glide.ui.ais.show_all_facets system property enables you to display facets from all sources when no source is selected. (The default behavior is to hide facets until a source is selected.) Search terms are no longer highlighted in search results.
    Sort facet buckets alphabetically
    Override the default sorting of facet buckets by their search result counts and display them sorted alphabetically by their labels.
    Improved display for grouped attachment search results
    When grouped with their parent search results, attachment search results now appear in collapsed form to save space. If a parent search result includes more than three grouped attachments, you can use the new Show more and Show less links to control how many attachments are visible.

    Activation information

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

    Browser requirements

    AI Search doesn’t support Internet Explorer.

    Accessibility information

    Dark theme
    The new Coral theme includes a dark theme option for web and mobile experiences. This option is commonly used to alleviate eye strain and improve readability.

    Localization information

    AI Search supports international languages. For details of language support by feature, see Internationalization support for AI Search.

    Related ServiceNow applications and features

    Advanced AI Search Management Tools
    The Advanced AI Search Management Tools application adds new functionality to AI Search. Administrators can review dashboards with metrics, trends, and reports relating to AI Search usage and configuration.
    Now Assist in AI Search
    The Now Assist in AI Search application combines the power of search with the Now LLM Service agentic AI model to answer questions in user searches with actionable AI-generated answers from relevant Knowledge articles.
    External Content Connectors
    The External Content Connectors ServiceNow Store application enables AI Search applications to search content and metadata from supported external source systems, including Atlassian Confluence Cloud, Atlassian Jira, Google Drive, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce Slack, ServiceNow product documentation, and public websites supported by the predefined web sources external content connector.