Activating Virtual Agent and getting started

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Activating Virtual Agent and Getting Started

    This guide helps ServiceNow customers quickly activate and start using Virtual Agent in their portals, enabling conversational interfaces to support ITSM and other business applications. It covers activation steps, branding customization, adding bots to portals, and leveraging prebuilt conversations and AI capabilities including ServiceNow Otto skills.

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    Key Features

    • Activation: Admin users can activate the Glide Virtual Agent plugin (com.glide.cs.chatbot), which also enables required dependent plugins automatically.
    • Predefined Content: Install predefined conversations for business applications, NLU tools, and Conversational Analytics dashboards to jumpstart bot functionality.
    • Portal Integration: Add Virtual Agent as a chat entry in your web portal menu, with the option to include ServiceNow Otto generative AI skills for enhanced conversations.
    • Branding Customization: Personalize your Virtual Agent’s appearance by modifying colors, icons, and adding your company logo to align with your brand identity. Similar customization is available for ServiceNow Otto during setup.
    • Topic Recommendations: Use the Topic Recommendations app to discover and implement prebuilt Virtual Agent topics tailored to your organization’s needs.
    • Additional Capabilities: Extend Virtual Agent with features such as Now Assist configuration, chat experience setups, custom topic creation, system message customization, AI Search enablement, NLU implementation, live agent handoff, language detection, dynamic translation, and topic localization.

    Next Steps for ServiceNow Customers

    • Ensure you have the appropriate Virtual Agent license or utilize Virtual Agent Lite for initial trials.
    • Activate the Virtual Agent plugin as an admin and install necessary plugins and conversation sets.
    • Add Virtual Agent to your portal's menu for user access, and optionally enable ServiceNow Otto for AI-powered conversations.
    • Customize branding to provide a consistent and engaging user experience aligned with your corporate identity.
    • Leverage the Topic Recommendations app to quickly deploy relevant conversation topics and enhance user engagement.
    • Explore advanced features and integrations to expand Virtual Agent capabilities based on evolving organizational requirements.

    Using the Conversational Interfaces console, you can quickly add Virtual Agent to a portal, configure branding, personalize the greeting, and begin to use pre-built ITSM Virtual Agent conversations.

    If you have a license for a ServiceNow Otto product, you can also quickly deploy ServiceNow Otto skills in Virtual Agent in a matter of minutes. For details, see Configuring assistants overview.

    Before you begin

    If you have a license for Virtual Agent, the following sections will help you get started and create conversations for your organization quickly.

    If you do not have a license for Virtual Agent, you can try Virtual Agent Lite, which comes preinstalled. For information about getting started with Virtual Agent Lite, see Quick start for Virtual Agent Lite.

    Get started with Virtual Agent

    1. Activate Virtual Agent

      You can activate the Glide Virtual Agent plugin (com.glide.cs.chatbot) if you have the admin role. This plugin automatically activates other necessary plugins if they are not already active.

    2. Install Virtual Agent plugins

      Install predefined conversations for your business applications, NLU tools, and the Conversational Analytics dashboard.

    3. Add your bot to a portal

      Add a chat entry to the menu of your web portal. You can add Virtual Agent to additional portals later.

      For conversations based on generative AI large language models (LLMs), you can quickly set up ServiceNow Otto in Virtual Agent and add it to a portal. For information about adding ServiceNow Otto in Virtual Agent to a portal, see Configuring assistants overview.

    4. Set up your Virtual Agent bot's branding

      Change the way Virtual Agent looks to the end user. You can change the colors, add your company logo, and change the icon that represents your bot.

      If you're using ServiceNow Otto in Virtual Agent, you can customize the look and feel during the configuration process. For more information, see Configuring assistants overview.

    5. Get recommended topics for your instance

      Use the Topic Recommendations app to identify prebuilt Virtual Agent topics that can be quickly implemented in your organization.

    Explore further

    As you work with Virtual Agent, you can expand its capabilities by implementing other features. For example, you can do the following: