ServiceNow Otto for Platform Analytics release notes
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Summary of ServiceNow Otto for Platform Analytics Release Notes
ServiceNow Otto® for Platform Analytics is a suite of AI-powered skills and applications that enable users to analyze business data through conversational interactions without requiring technical expertise in Platform Analytics. The solution integrates generative AI to help generate and manage Platform Analytics objects, facilitating faster, data-driven decision-making.
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The release notes cover updates through the Zurich release series, including important patches that introduce new features, improvements, and activation details relevant to ServiceNow customers.
Key Features
- AI Data Explorer (Zurich Patch 4 and later): Enables users to create “explorations” — editable, collaborative documents for analyzing data with AI assistance. It supports adding visualizations to dashboards, sharing explorations with users, duplicating content, and summarizing analyses.
- Query Generation: Converts natural language queries into actionable insights, supporting multi-table sources, Workflow Data Fabric tables, database views, and Glide List fields, enhancing data accessibility across various tables and views.
- Improved Segment Management: Supports manual and automatic segment creation with prioritization of manual segments, improved naming conventions, and domain separation to refine data context and accuracy in analysis.
- Enhanced Visualization and Search: Extended analysis provides deeper insights including directional trends and indicator targets. Dashboard and data visualization export skills allow users to generate and export artifacts directly from conversational interactions.
- Usage Measurement Changes: AI usage measurement now follows a burn-down model resetting annually based on contract anniversary, improving tracking accuracy.
- Activation and Default Settings: Key generative AI skills, including Query Generation and export skills, are enabled by default for new customers and selectively for existing customers during upgrade, ensuring smoother adoption.
- Accessibility Improvements: Keyboard navigation and enhanced control menus for managing exploration content improve usability and accessibility for all users.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Non-technical Data Analysis: Business users can analyze complex data sets conversationally, reducing dependency on specialized Platform Analytics skills.
- Collaborative Decision Making: Shared explorations and AI-generated insights enable teams to quickly gather, discuss, and act on data findings.
- Data Integration Flexibility: Support for various data sources and table types broadens the scope of analysis, including protected scopes and financial data.
- Improved Insight Accuracy: Prioritizing manual segments and boosting selected indicators in AI Search results enhances the relevance and precision of generated insights.
- Seamless Experience: Integration across Now Assist applications provides a consistent interface for querying and visualizing Platform Analytics data with AI support.
Activation and Configuration
ServiceNow Otto® for Platform Analytics applications and skills are available via the ServiceNow Store. Installation includes dependencies such as the Generative AI Controller. After installation, customers must activate relevant skills to begin leveraging AI Data Explorer, Query Generation, and dashboard export functionalities. Configuration options allow customization of semantic metadata and control over which tables are queryable by generative AI, enabling tailored data access and governance.
Additional Notes
- Visibility into the Query Generation process helps users understand query states and outcomes.
- Security and domain separation features ensure compliance and proper data handling for protected scopes.
- Continuous improvements and patch releases address usability, functionality, and performance enhancements.
ServiceNow Otto® for Platform Analytics consists of several skills and applications that let you generate and work with Platform Analytics objects through generative AI. These skills let you analyze your business data through conversational interactions, without a technical knowledge of Platform Analytics.
ServiceNow Otto® for Platform Analytics highlights
Zurich Patch 5The following highlights are specific to AI Data Explorer, which relies on Query Generation in the back end.
- Review changes to ServiceNow Otto® usage measurement.
Zurich Patch 4
- Some generative AI skills are now turned on by default.
- Create "explorations"—editable documents where you analyze data with the help of AI. Refine responses, add your own input, and collaborate with others to make data-informed decisions faster.
Previous Patch releases
- Generate and export Platform Analytics artifacts from conversational interactions in the ServiceNow Otto® panel.
- Benefit from a single, smooth experience in asking questions across all ServiceNow Otto® for Platform Analytics skills, and other applications that incorporate Platform Analytics and AI, through a shared backend.
See Now Assist in Platform Analytics for more information.
Important:
ServiceNow Otto® for Platform Analytics applications are available in the ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.
New features, applications, and skills
- Zurich Patch 4
- Gather insights, plan, and collaborate in the AI Data Explorer (December 2025)
- Ask quick questions, receive tailored recommendations, and collaborate with AI and your colleagues to build long-term analysis. Enable teams to discuss and act on findings instantly. Centralize insights and narratives for
better decision making. Guide users with contextual insights and suggestions.Main features include:
- Extended analysis generates a deeper level of analysis that can reveal new insights, enabling you to make more informed decisions.
- Add a data visualization from an exploration to a dashboard
- Share explorations with tagged users
- Duplicate an exploration
- Duplicate an answer in an exploration
- Summarize an exploration
AI Data Explorer leverages Query Generation to translate natural language questions into actionable insights. Query Generation enables users of AI Data Explorer to analyze their data and access a broader range of data sets. Key capabilities include:
Changed features
- Zurich Patch 12
- Promote selected indicators in AI Search results
- Add high-quality indicators that you identify to a list. The indicators on that list are given a boost in AI Search results for Query Generation.
- View more indicator insights in Extended analysis
- See directional trends over time and indicator target information in Extended analysis summaries.
- Improvements to data visualizations in Query Generation responses
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- Single-score charts now render sparklines by default.
- When a user query on indicator data does not specify a visualization type, the response returns the indicator's default chart type.
- Zurich Patch 11
- Query indicator data
- Get scores from automated indicators in your AI Data Explorer explorations. Only classic automated indicators are supported, not Data Snapshots.
- Zurich Patch 10
- Explorations not available from visualization or list for unsupported scope
- You can't open AI Data Explorer from a data visualization or list that shows data from a protected scope that is not supported.
- Improvements to generated segments
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- The names of automatically generated segments now include both the module name and the name of the application it belongs to.
- Improved logic to join conditions for segments generated from reports and report sources. More complex conditions such as global OR are now supported.
- Query Generation support for Glide Lists
- Query Generation now supports Glide List fields on tables.
- Zurich Patch 9
- Explore data from protected scopes
- Provide access to protected application scopes to AI Data Explorer and Query Generation, and you can use data from those application tables in explorations.
- Manual segments are prioritized
- Manual segments are re-ranked to take priority over automatically generated segments.
- Zurich Patch 8
- Improvements to how segments are handled
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- Manual segments are re-ranked to take priority over automatically generated segments.
- Prompt changes made to better support manual segments.
- More segments are passed to the LLM to increase the chance of the correct segment getting selected. Twelve segments are passed instead of three.
- Segments longer than 2000 characters are dropped to prevent context window bloat.
- Customize semantic metadata in configuration tables
- Customize semantic descriptions and usage instructions in the table and column configuration tables. Unlike the previous method of editing Entity and Dimension records, these changes can be transferred between instances through update sets.
- Zurich Patch 7
- View recommended actions
- AI Data Explorer can suggest actions based on the insights that it generates in an exploration.
- Ask questions about FX currency data
- Query Generation now supports the FXCurrency (Currency 2) data type. This means that you can use AI Data Explorer to explore financial operations data, including those within Source-to-Pay Operations.
- Benefit from improvements to segments
- Segments are reusable definitions in Query Generation that provide non-obvious context to assist the semantic layer or LLM to select the correct dimension and values. Users can create manual segments via a new form. A scheduled job synchronizes
manual and autogenerated segments. This job also cleans up segments to help surface the correct segments and reduce noise.
Domain separation is also now supported, with a Domain field on the Segments table. Segments based on reports and filters inherit the source domain. Manual segments have domains that are passed up to the Segments table on synchronization. Segments are not supported for modules on domain-separated instances.
- Zurich Patch 5
- Changes to Now Assist usage measurement
- Starting with Australia Early Access, AI usage measurement is transitioning from a 365-day look-back model to a 365-day burn-down model, with usage resetting at the contract anniversary date. For more information, refer to KB KB2704710: AI Usage - Overview & New Measurement Logic.
- Dashboard and data visualization export skill is active by default (January 2026)
- The new default behavior works as follows:
- New customers: When you install a Now Assist product, designated skills are turned on automatically.
- Existing customers who are upgrading (starting with Zurich Patch 5): If this skill was previously unconfigured, it is turned on automatically (the skill was never configured and turned on, then turned off again). If the skill was previously turned on, then off, it remains inactive.
- Zurich Patch 4
- Query Generation skills are active by default
- If the Generative AI Controller plugin is activated, the skills for Query Generation are activated by default. The new default behavior works as follows:
- New customers: When you install a Now Assist product, designated skills are turned on automatically.
- Existing customers who are upgrading (starting with Zurich Patch 4): Any previously unconfigured skill is turned on automatically (the skill was never turned on, then off again). Previously configured skills that were turned on, then off, remain inactive.
- Greater visibility into the Query Generation process
- When you call Query Generation from AI Data Explorer or another application, you see each state that the query and response goes through before completing.
- Multi-table source support
- Query Generation supports related table conditions and dot-walking in queries.
- Get insights and visualizations for Workflow Data Fabric tables
- Ask AI Data Explorer information about Workflow Data Fabric data and get insightful responses. You must first add the Workflow Data Fabric tables to the Query Generation Semantic Table Configuration table.
- Use database views in queries
- Generate visualizations or ask AI Data Explorer about data kept in database views, like SLA data. You have to add the database views to the Query Generation Semantic Table Configuration table.
- Zurich Patch 1
- Add tables to the semantic data layer
- Choose which tables your users can query with generative AI for data analysis.
- Monitor the health of the Query Generation back end
- View the state of Now Assist for Platform Analytics LLM, plugins, system properties, components, and dependent products.
Activation information
AI Data Explorer is available from the ServiceNow Store.
Query Generation, Analytics Generation, and the dashboard and data visualization export skill are installed with Generative AI Controller, which is included as a dependency of all Now Assist applications.
Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.
After installation, activate the relevant skills. For more information, see the relevant Configure topics under Now Assist in Platform Analytics.
Plugin information
- New plugins
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The following plugins are new in Zurich:
AI Data Explorer (sn_pa_ai_canvas): The AI Data Explorer application allows users to explore data with help of AI, gather and organize findings, and collaborate with other users.
Accessibility information
- (June 2026 AI Data Explorer) Keyboard navigation allows tabbing between the text editor and the icons.
- (June 2026 AI Data Explorer) Users can use move up/move down control menu items to change the order of question/response nodes in the exploration. Previously they could only drag the nodes.