AI Search in Service Portal

  • Release version: Washingtondc
  • Updated February 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of AI Search in Service Portal

    The AI Search application enhances the ServiceNow Service Portal by providing users with intelligent query features, enabling them to quickly find relevant answers. This modern search tool improves upon the legacy Zing search with faster performance and a more assistive user experience.

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    Key Features

    • Powerful and Flexible Search: Includes auto-complete, natural language support, and typo handling, making it easier for users to find information.
    • Relevant and Actionable Results: Delivers personalized search results based on user information (role, location, etc.) and includes actionable "genius results" for direct actions from the search results list.
    • Intelligent Search Refinement: Allows users to filter results dynamically or statically using facets and tabs to narrow down their searches.
    • Configuration Options: Enables customization of search applications and results through portal record updates, and supports various search widgets.
    • Browser Support: Users need to log in using modern browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari.

    Key Outcomes

    By configuring AI Search in the Service Portal, customers can expect enhanced search experiences that lead to quicker, more relevant results, ultimately improving user satisfaction and operational efficiency. Administrators can customize the search settings, including result display and theming, to align with organizational branding and user needs.

    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

    Powerful and flexible search

    Unlike the legacy Zing search that was used in previous releases, AI Search is faster and more assistive. Portal users can find answers more quickly and easily 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 enable 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 are upgrading to Washington DC as an existing customer, AI Search is disabled 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 cloned 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 modern browser such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge (Chromium), or Apple Safari.