Integrating external AI agents
Summarize
Summary of Integrating External AI Agents
This document outlines how to integrate and configure external AI agents with the ServiceNow agentic AI system using the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol and manual integration. This integration enhances workflows created in AI Agent Studio, allowing for improved AI agent interactions within the ServiceNow platform.
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Key Features
- Enable External AI Agent Integration: Access this feature via AI Agent Studio > Settings > External AI agents > Discoverability. Toggle options allow ServiceNow to access external agents and permit third-party integrations.
- Connection Options: Two methods for connecting external agents are available: the A2A protocol and manual integration, both requiring a Connection & Credential alias record.
- Contextual Data Access: Options for short-term and long-term memory enable AI agents to remember preferences across sessions, enhancing user experience.
- Agent2Agent (A2A) Protocol: An open standard allowing AI agents from different platforms to communicate, utilizing standardized JSON in Agent Cards for interoperability.
- Authentication Configuration: A2A connections necessitate authorization through Connection & Credential Alias and Connection records for secure execution.
Key Outcomes
By integrating external AI agents, ServiceNow customers can enhance the capabilities of their AI workflows, leading to improved interaction quality and context-aware responses. This integration allows for managing multiple simultaneous conversations and leveraging structured and unstructured data, ultimately improving overall operational efficiency and user satisfaction.
Integrate and configure external agents with the ServiceNow agentic AI system using Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol and manual integration to use in agentic workflows created in AI Agent Studio.
External agent discovery on the ServiceNow AI Platform
You can enable external AI agents on the AI Agent Studio via the Settings page. Navigate to .
- Allow ServiceNow to access External AI agents: Turn on the toggle to enable external AI agents integration with the ServiceNow agentic AI system using the A2A protocol.
- Allow third-party to access ServiceNow AI agents: Turn on the toggle to enables integrating ServiceNow AI agents into external agentic AI systems.
When creating a new external AI agent in AI Agent Studio, you have two options for connecting your agent to the ServiceNow agentic AI system. One option is the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol, and the other is manual integration.
For both options, you must have a Connection & Credential alias record that connects to your agentic AI provider. With manual integration, you must also create structured JSON that fits your agentic AI provider's metadata for the AI agent to work as expected.
After connecting to the external AI agent, you can add details about its role and instructions to provide context for the AI Agent Orchestrator. Additional context helps differentiate your AI agent from other AI agents so that the AI Agent Orchestrator can decide about which agent to use.
Contextual data access for external agents on the ServiceNow AI Platform
- Short-term memory: Turn on the toggle to enable external AI agents remember your preferences or facts from the current interaction only.
- Long-term memory: Turn on the toggle to enable external AI agents remember your preferences or facts from previous interaction.
- Knowledge graph for external AI agent interactions: Turn on the toggle to enable external AI agents to use structured and unstructured data from different records across the ServiceNow AI Platform.
Manual integration overview
You can manually integrate a third-party agent using a Connection & Credential alias and metadata in a structured JSON format. The alias and metadata connect your third party agent platform to your ServiceNow instance and identifies what information is being returned when the external AI agent sends a message.
See Create an external AI agent with manual integration for instructions for manually integrating an external AI agent.
Agent2Agent protocol overview
Agent2Agent (A2A) is an open standard that enables AI agents across different platforms to communicate with each other. The standard relies on every AI agent having an Agent Card associated with it that provides basic information for providers like the ServiceNow AI Platform, Azure, and Google to use them.
Version 0.3 of A2A is supported.
An AI agent's Agent Card uses standardized JSON to help different providers understand its capabilities. The Agent Card is accessed by a specific type of endpoint from a provider's server. Execution plans are communicated through an execution endpoint so that both the provider's server and the ServiceNow AI Platform can track what the external AI agent is doing.
See Create an external AI agent with the Agent2Agent protocol for instructions for using this protocol to create an AI agent.
Configuring A2A authentication
A2A connections require authorization from the source platform to execute on the ServiceNow AI Platform. Authentication is established by creating two Connection & Credential Alias and Connection records, one with an Agent Card endpoint and one with an execution endpoint.
Configuration Properties
The following properties configure different aspects of how your agents can interact with the ServiceNow AI Platform.
|
Name |
Description |
|---|---|
|
sn_aia.external_agents.enabled |
Set to true to enable external agent features |
|
sn_aia.external_agents.parallel_conversations.enabled |
Enables or disables multiple simultaneous conversations per user |