Exploring Virtual Agent

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated November 14, 2024
  • 3 minutes to read

    • The ServiceNow Virtual Agent platform provides user assistance through conversations within an intelligent messaging interface. Design and build automated conversations with an out-of-the-box system that help your users quickly obtain information, make decisions, and perform common work tasks with Virtual Agent.

    Overview of Virtual Agent

    Virtual Agent helps solve ordinary issues and delivers results for common requests, leaving your agents and technicians free to focus on more complex user issues. You can change the look and feel of the chat experience to suit each audience for your business, including running your chatbot in a variety of common or custom messaging channels. Monitor your bot's success with the Conversational Analytics dashboard.

    When you add Now Assist in Virtual Agent skills, your developers have access to large language model (LLM) topic discovery. The Now Assist topics skill includes LLM controls that make topic authoring easier so that you can deliver self-service solutions more quickly.

    Virtual Agent increases deflection and improves self-service in a customizable environment. With Now Assist in Virtual Agent, development time is faster and uses generative AI LLM topic discovery.

    Pre-built Virtual Agent topics

    Pre-built Virtual Agent topics are available from the ServiceNow Store. These topics are designed to handle common issues that can occur and are customized for ServiceNow workflows. Available plugins include the following:

    Virtual Agent and Virtual Agent Lite

    The Virtual Agent platform is available as a professional subscription or in a limited version (Virtual Agent Lite) that is automatically included with the ServiceNow AI Platform®.

    Virtual Agent Professional provides all the core functionality for creating and deploying Virtual Agent conversations. Virtual Agent includes the following features, which are automatically installed with the Glide Virtual Agent plugin (com.glide.cs.chatbot):
    • Virtual Agent Designer (supports Natural Language Understanding (NLU) in Virtual Agent conversations)
    • Virtual Agent chat widget
    • Virtual Agent notifications
    • Conversational custom chat integration framework
    • Conversational Interfaces console for admin configuration
    • Topic Recommendations (ServiceNow Store app)
    • Conversational Analytics (ServiceNow Store app)

    Virtual Agent Lite provides a limited (trial) version of Virtual Agent for ITSM standard customers. For more information, see Virtual Agent Lite.

    Virtual Agent benefits

    Benefit Feature Role
    Use a conversation designer to build and test conversations without scripting or advanced skills. Drag and drop elements on the graphical canvas to see the entire flow. Go further with branching, looping, and scripting. Virtual Agent Designer virtual_agent_admin or admin
    Use LLM topic discovery instead of Natural Language Understanding (NLU) or keywords to create more conversational experiences. Now Assist in Virtual Agent uses LLMs and generative AI skills to improve deflection rates and reduce the amount of time-consuming work that NLU topic discovery requires.

    Now Assist in Virtual Agent

    LLM topic discovery in Virtual Agent

    		 virtual_agent_admin or admin
    Create custom chat experiences for users from where they run Virtual Agent.

    Configuring Now Assist in Virtual Agent

    Branding your chat client

    Setting up chat experiences for Virtual Agent users

    		 virtual_agent_admin or admin
    Seamlessly transfer the entire conversation history and context to the right human agent so they can quickly address any escalations and resolve user issues. Using Virtual Agent with a live agent virtual_agent_admin or admin
    Connect to where your employees and customers already are—in web portals, Now® Mobile apps, and collaboration tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Facebook Messenger consumer app, Workplace from Facebook enterprise messaging app, and any other popular chat or messaging app. Integrating Virtual Agent with other channels virtual_agent_admin or admin
    Analyze the performance of Virtual Agent through preconfigured dashboards. Analyzing Virtual Agent performance virtual_agent_admin or admin
    Deliver real-time alerts and status updates to employees, including actionable notifications and SMS notifications. Deliver notifications via all supported channels, including web, Slack, Workplace, and SMS. You can quickly collect feedback for critical decisions and resolve requests faster. Configuring Virtual Agent notifications virtual_agent_admin or admin
    Serve your international Virtual Agent users, regardless of their language and locale. Localization options for Virtual Agent virtual_agent_admin or admin
    Integrate with other ServiceNow AI Platform applications, such as AI Search. Use Workflow Studio to add automated workflows to conversation topics, and access many third-party services using Integration Hub spokes.

    Improving the user experience with AI Search

    Integrating Virtual Agent with Workflow Studio workflows

    Integration Hub

    		 virtual_agent_admin or admin
    The Virtual Agent API enables developers, advanced users, and admins to use Virtual Agent as a standalone or secondary bot in your chat environment. Use Virtual Agent Bot Interconnect as the primary bot in a diverse chat environment.

    Using Virtual Agent API

    Using Virtual Agent Bot Interconnect in your configuration

    		 virtual_agent_admin or admin
    Note:
    For developer training, go to the Developer's Portal (login required). Navigate to Learn > Courses > Virtual Agent.