Configuring AI Search

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated February 13, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
  • Plan and configure your AI Search implementation.

    AI Search configuration overview

    Configuration stage Description
    Assign roles to AI Search administrators and users Assign the ais_admin role to users who need to create, read, update, and delete content indexing and search settings for AI Search.

    Assign the ais_high_security_admin elevated privilege role to users who need to access High Security settings for AI Search.

    Assign the search_application_admin to users who need to create, read, update, and delete search application configurations.

    Define indexed sources Create and configure an indexed source for each ServiceNow AI Platform® table that has content you want to make searchable. Index source tables to add their searchable content to the AI Search index.

    The base system includes pre-configured indexed sources for the Catalog Item, Knowledge, and User tables.

    Define search sources Apply filter conditions to indexed sources to define search sources that users can access in your search experiences.

    The base system includes pre-configured search sources that reference the default indexed sources.

    Define search profiles Create and publish a search profile for each distinct search experience that you want to offer in search applications. Specify the data that users can search by linking search sources to the search profile. Control search behavior by configuring synonyms, stop words, typo handling settings, Genius Results, and result improvement rules.

    The base system includes pre-configured search profiles for use with Service Portal, Now Mobile, and the AI Search Assist Service Portal widget.

    Define search application configurations Create a configuration for each ServiceNow AI Platform application that supports AI Search. Select a search profile for the application to use. Configure application-specific search settings.

    The base system includes pre-configured search application configurations for Service Portal, Virtual Agent, and the AI Search Assist Service Portal widget.

    Enable and configure AI Search in ServiceNow AI Platform applications Specify AI Search as the search engine in supported ServiceNow AI Platform applications. Select a search application configuration for each application to use and configure available search UX settings.
    Create a custom search matcher for global search Optionally configure exact-match global searches that only match results from a specified column (field) on a particular ServiceNow AI Platform table.

    Using guided setup to implement AI Search

    Guided setup provides a sequence of tasks that help you configure AI Search on your ServiceNow instance. To open AI Search guided setup, navigate to All > AI Search > Guided Setup.

    For more information about using the guided setup interface, see Using guided setup.