Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) release notes

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated April 4, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) release notes

    The ServiceNow® Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) application, introduced in the Yokohama release, integrates agentic AI capabilities to enhance hardware asset management processes. This application delivers AI-driven automation and real-time insights to optimize asset sourcing, repair, and overall management, improving operational efficiency and reducing manual work.

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    Key Features

    • Real-time Asset Analysis (Yokohama Patch 13): Access comprehensive, AI-generated summaries directly on asset records. These dynamic summaries reflect asset lifecycle, current assignments, location, audit status, financial data, and highlight missing information, facilitating informed asset management decisions.
    • Hardware Asset Repair Automation (Yokohama Patch 6): Use AI agents within an agentic workflow to automate repair tasks for defective or out-of-warranty hardware. AI agents validate repair tasks, deliver troubleshooting guidance, and complete tasks upon user confirmation.
    • Hardware Asset Sourcing Automation (Yokohama Patch 4): Automate sourcing tasks such as consuming assets from local stock, creating transfer orders, and generating purchase orders via AI agents in an agentic workflow. This reduces manual intervention and accelerates request fulfillment.
    • Access Control Configuration: Configure Access Control Lists (ACLs) in AI Agent Studio to define who can discover and trigger AI agents and workflows. ACLs allow control over whether agents act as dynamic or AI users and specify availability to authenticated users or the public.
    • Usage Measurement Updates (Yokohama Patch 11): Now Assist usage tracking has shifted from a 365-day look-back to a 365-day burn-down model, resetting at the contract anniversary. Some Now Assist skills and agents are enabled by default for new and upgrading customers, streamlining setup.

    Activation and Requirements

    Now Assist for HAM is available through the ServiceNow Store and requires the Hardware Asset Management Pro plus license. For full feature access, customers should upgrade to Yokohama Patch 6 and install the corresponding store application.

    Related ServiceNow Features

    • Now Assist: Enhances productivity with AI-driven self-service, action recommendations, and improved search capabilities.
    • Now Assist Admin Console: Simplifies setup, configuration, and monitoring of Now Assist applications.
    • Now Assist Panel: Offers conversational AI interfaces in Service Operations Workspace for summarizing chats, incidents, and resolution notes.
    • Now Assist Skills: Provides generative AI functionalities across workflows including summarization and code generation.

    The ServiceNow® Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) application brings agentic AI to Hardware Asset Management. Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) is a new application in the Yokohama release.

    Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) highlights for the Yokohama release

    Yokohama Patch 13- Gain real-time visibility into critical asset data through generative AI-driven asset analysis summaries.

    Yokohama Patch 11
    • Review changes to Now Assist usage measurement.
    • Some Now Assist skills, agents, and agentic workflows are on by default.
    • Additional role configuration is required for agentic workflows and AI agents included with Now Assist applications.

    Yokohama Patch 6 - Automate the hardware asset repair process by using an agentic workflow and configure Access Control Lists (ACLs) for both AI agents and agentic workflows.

    Yokohama Patch 4 - Automate and streamline your hardware asset request process by using an agentic workflow.

    See Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) for more information.

    Important:
    Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) is available in the ServiceNow Store. For details, see the "Activation information" section of these release notes.

    Important information for upgrading Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) to Yokohama

    Only users with the procurement_user role can access the Help manage hardware asset requests agentic workflow including the following AI agents:
    • Hardware asset management sourcing AI agent
    • Transfer order creation AI agent
    • Purchase order creation AI agent

    Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) features

    Yokohama Patch 13
    Manage your assets with comprehensive and real-time data
    View consolidated asset information through AI-generated analysis summary on the asset record. The AI-generated summary dynamically updates based on the asset state and includes context from any active incidents or tasks. The summary displays the asset life cycle, current assignment and location, audit status, financial metrics, and identifies missing data to support asset management activities.
    Yokohama Patch 6
    Optimize hardware asset repair process with the suite of AI agents
    Automate the repair of defective and out-of-warranty hardware assets by using AI agents in the Help repair hardware assets agentic workflow. These AI agents validate the repair tasks, provide detailed troubleshooting and repair instructions, and complete the tasks on receiving user confirmation.
    Configure ACLs for AI agents and agentic workflows
    Configure the Access Control Lists for who can discover and trigger AI agents and agentic workflows in their guided setups in AI Agent Studio. You can determine whether an AI agent or agentic workflow behaves as a dynamic user or as an AI user. You can also specify if an AI agent or agentic workflow can be available to all authenticated users or publicly available.
    Yokohama Patch 4
    Optimize hardware asset sourcing with the suite of AI agents
    Automate your hardware asset sourcing by using AI agents in the Help manage hardware asset requests agentic workflow. These AI agents can efficiently handle tasks such as automatically consuming assets from local stock, creating transfer orders, and generating purchase orders. By automating complex and repetitive tasks in the hardware asset request process, AI agents help to reduce manual intervention significantly, speed up request resolution, enhance the productivity of asset managers, and improve operational efficiency.

    Changed in this release

    Yokohama Patch 11
    Changes to Now Assist usage measurement
    Starting with Yokohama Patch 5, Now Assist usage measurement is transitioning from a 365-day look-back model to a 365-day burn-down model, with usage resetting at the contract anniversary date. For more information, refer to KB KB2704710: Now Assist Usage - Overview & New Measurement Logic.
    Some Now Assist skills are turned on by default
    The new default behavior works as follows:
    • New customers: When you install a Now Assist product, designated skills are turned on automatically.
    • Existing customers who are upgrading (starting with Yokohama Patch 11): Any previously unconfigured skill is turned on automatically (the skill was never configured and turned on, then turned off again). Previously configured skills that were turned on, then off, remain inactive.
    Configure ACLs for AI agents and agentic workflows
    Configure the access control lists for who can discover and trigger AI agents and agentic workflows in their guided setups in AI Agent Studio. You can determine whether an AI agent or agentic workflow behaves as a dynamic user or as an AI user. You can also specify if an AI agent or agentic workflow can be available to all authenticated users or publicly available.

    Activation information

    Install Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) by requesting it from the ServiceNow Store.
    Note:
     To take full advantage of the Now Assist for HAM features, you should upgrade to Yokohama Patch 6 and install the Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) store application.
    Visit the ServiceNow Store website to view all the available apps and for information about submitting requests to the store. For cumulative release notes information for all released apps, see the ServiceNow Store version history release notes.

    Additional requirements

    The Now Assist for Hardware Asset Management (HAM) application requires the Hardware Asset Management Pro plus license.

    Related ServiceNow applications and features

    Now Assist
    Help improve the productivity and efficiency in your organization, deliver better self-service, recommend actions, provide answers, and empower your users to search more effectively.
    Now Assist Admin console
    Use the Now Assist Admin console for quick and effortless access to the important information that you need to set up, configure, and monitor Now Assist applications and features.
    Now Assist panel
    Use this conversational interface in ServiceNow® Service Operations Workspace to summarize a chat, an incident, or resolution notes so that you can get the context of this information more quickly.
    Now Assist skills
    Use the ServiceNow® Now Assist products to provide generative AI skills to meet the needs of users in different workflows, including case or incident summarization, chat summarization, resolution notes generation, and code generation.