Internationalization support for AI Search

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated May 21, 2026
  • 6 minutes to read
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    Summary of Internationalization support for AI Search

    AI Search on the ServiceNow AI Platform supports indexing and searching content in multiple languages automatically, covering a wide range including Arabic, French, Japanese, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and many others. This internationalization support is built-in and requires no manual configuration. It enables customers to index and search content accurately in the languages they use, improving relevance and usability globally.

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    Key Features

    • Language Support and Tokenization: AI Search uses language-specific tokenization to break text into searchable terms, handling each supported language according to its linguistic rules (e.g., contextual tokenization for Chinese and Japanese).
    • Automatic Language Identification: For Task table records and external documents, AI Search identifies the language and applies appropriate tokenization settings. Content not in supported languages defaults to English tokenization.
    • Reindexing Requirement: After activating a new language plugin, customers must reindex relevant content to enable search in that language and benefit from improved tokenization.
    • Multi-language Content Handling: AI Search can index embedded text regions in Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese within content of other languages, applying correct tokenization per region.
    • Search Query Processing: Queries are tokenized using the current user session language, but embedded Japanese and Chinese terms are processed with their respective tokenizations regardless of session language.
    • Language-dependent Features: Features like Genius Results, lemma and Unicode normalization, stop words, synonyms, typo handling, and result improvement rules rely on language matching between query and indexed content for optimal performance.
    • Fallback Language Support: AI Search can be configured to search translated content in a fallback language alongside the user's session language, using appropriate dictionaries for stop words, synonyms, and typo handling.
    • Multilingual Knowledge Article Search: Customers can assign search languages by user country, configure globally searchable articles, and control translation display in facets to enhance multilingual search effectiveness.

    Practical Guidance for ServiceNow Customers

    • Activate desired language plugins via the ServiceNow AI Platform to extend AI Search language capabilities.
    • After activation, perform a full reindex of content to enable accurate search in new languages and leverage improved tokenization and feature support.
    • Understand that AI Search automatically detects and applies language-specific processing for both indexed content and user queries, ensuring relevant results across languages.
    • Configure fallback languages and multilingual knowledge article search settings to improve search recall for users in different regions or language preferences.
    • Note that certain advanced features like typo handling are not supported for some Asian languages (Japanese, Korean, Chinese), which may affect search behavior.

    By leveraging AI Search’s internationalization support, ServiceNow customers can provide a more inclusive and effective search experience across diverse languages and regions without manual configuration, ensuring accurate and context-aware content retrieval.

    AI Search supports indexing and search in all languages offered by the ServiceNow AI Platform®. Search linguistic features are supported in Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, French - Canada, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish.

    Internationalization support is automatically enabled and isn't configurable.

    To view the full list of languages offered as ServiceNow AI Platform plugins and supported in AI Search, see Activate a language.
    Note:
    After you activate a new language plugin, you must reindex all indexed source content that you want to make searchable in the new language. For details on reindexing, see Perform a full table index or reindex for a single AI Search indexed source.
    Language settings determine how AI Search separates the text of indexed content and search queries into individual terms. This process, called tokenization, is handled differently for each supported language, using language-specific settings. For example, most languages use spaces and punctuation to separate words and sentences, but when tokenizing Chinese or Japanese text, AI Search instead uses contextual interpretation to correctly identify word and sentence breaks. When tokenizing Japanese text, AI Search additionally recognizes the nakaguro (middle dot) as a word separator.
    Note:
    If you indexed content in any of the following languages prior to the specified date, you should reindex it to benefit from improved tokenization and feature support added in the AI Search back end.
    Date Languages to reindex
    August 2024 Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Swedish
    August 2025 Finnish
    December 2025 Polish
    June 2026 Arabic, Czech, Danish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Russian, Turkish

    Indexing behavior in supported languages

    When indexing content and metadata from a ServiceNow AI Platform source record or an external document, AI Search uses tokenization settings for the language of the record or document, as shown in the following table.

    Record or Document Tokenization Settings
    Source record from the Task [task] table or one of its child tables AI Search performs language identification and uses tokenization settings for the detected language to index the record's content and metadata.
    Note:
    Language identification only identifies Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, French - Canada, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish. Content in other languages is identified and treated as English.
    Source record from a non-Task table AI Search uses tokenization settings for the record's language to index its content and metadata.

    If the record has no language specified, the ServiceNow AI Platform treats it as being in the instance's default language. In an English instance, for example, AI Search indexes records without specified languages using tokenization settings for English.
    External document AI Search performs language identification and uses tokenization settings for the detected language to index the document's content and metadata.
    Note:
    Language identification only identifies Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, French - Canada, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish. Content in other languages is identified and treated as English.
    Note:
    When indexing content and metadata, AI Search recognizes regions of Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese text embedded within text in other languages. These text regions are indexed with the appropriate language tokenization settings regardless of the surrounding text's language. As an example, suppose you index an English-language knowledge article that includes a paragraph of Simplified Chinese. AI Search indexes this paragraph's content as Simplified Chinese and the rest of the record's content as English.

    Search query behavior in supported languages

    When processing search query text, AI Search uses tokenization settings for the language of the current user's ServiceNow AI Platform session.
    Note:
    AI Search recognizes Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese terms in search queries. These terms are processed with the appropriate language tokenization settings regardless of the user session's language. As an example, if a user in a French user session searches for remplacement ordinateur 笔记本电脑, AI Search applies Simplified Chinese settings for the 笔记本电脑 term and French settings for the other search terms.

    AI Search compares your search query terms with terms from indexed content and metadata, returning search results for indexed records or documents that contain matches. When your search terms are in the same language as the indexed terms, AI Search processes both sets of terms with the same tokenization settings, producing predictable matches and search results. If your search terms aren't in the same language as the indexed terms, AI Search processes the two sets of terms with different tokenization settings and matching may be unpredictable.

    Language dependence for search features

    The following search features are language-dependent and supported only for the listed languages.

    Table 1. Search feature language dependence
    Feature Language dependence and supported languages
    Genius Results AI Search only evaluates Genius Result configurations with NLU triggers if the linked NLU model has the same language as the search query.

    Genius Results configurations that use an LLM or a heuristic model, such as Now Assist Multi-Content Response or Q&A, are limited to languages supported by the model.

    Supported languages: Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, French - Canada, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish.
    Language identification and tokenization During indexing, AI Search identifies supported languages in Task table records and external documents. Text processing for the indexed content uses tokenization settings for the identified language.

    Supported languages: Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, French - Canada, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish.
    Lemma and Unicode normalization AI Search performs language-specific lemma normalization for terms in indexed content and search queries.
    Supported languages: Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, French - Canada, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish.
    Note:
    For German, Danish, Hungarian, Korean, Norwegian (Bokmål), and Swedish, AI Search performs term decompounding in addition to lemma normalization. For Finnish, AI Search uses algorithmic stemming to identify lemmas.

    AI Search performs Unicode normalization for all terms in indexed content and search queries.

    For more information on normalization of lemmas and Unicode forms in indexed content and search queries, see Lemma and Unicode normalization.
    Result improvement rules AI Search only evaluates activation for result improvement rules that have the same language as the search query or that have All Languages specified.

    Supported languages: All languages activated in your instance. For the list of languages you can activate, see Activate a language.
    Stop words AI Search only considers stop words from dictionaries that have the same language as the search query.

    Supported languages: All languages activated in your instance. For the list of languages you can activate, see Activate a language.
    Synonyms AI Search only considers synonyms from dictionaries that have the same language as the search query.

    Supported languages: All languages activated in your instance. For the list of languages you can activate, see Activate a language.
    Typo handling AI Search derives a separate list of auto-correction terms for each supported language found in search source indexed content. Auto-correction only replaces search query terms with terms from the list that has the same language as the search query.

    Supported languages: Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French - Canada, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. Typo handling isn't supported for Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, or Traditional Chinese.