Integrating external AI agents
Summarize
Summary of Integrating external AI agents
This feature enables ServiceNow customers to integrate and configure external AI agents with the ServiceNow agentic AI system using the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol. This integration allows these external agents to participate in agentic workflows created within AI Agent Studio, enhancing collaboration and functionality across multiple AI platforms.
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Key Features
- External Agent Discovery: Customers can enable external AI agents in AI Agent Studio via the Settings page by toggling options to allow ServiceNow to access external agents and to allow third parties to access ServiceNow AI agents.
- Connection Setup: Creating a new external AI agent involves establishing Connection & Credential alias records that link to the external AI provider, enabling the integration through the A2A protocol.
- Agent Contextualization: When connecting an external AI agent, customers add role descriptions and instructions to provide context, helping the AI Agent Orchestrator distinguish among agents for optimal task assignment.
- Contextual Data Access: External agents can be configured to access contextual data to improve their responses:
- Short-term memory: Remembers preferences or facts during the current interaction only.
- Long-term memory: Remembers preferences or facts from previous interactions.
- Knowledge graph access: Enables use of structured and unstructured data from across the ServiceNow AI Platform to enhance interactions.
- Agent2Agent (A2A) Protocol: An open standard that standardizes communication between AI agents across platforms using an Agent Card (JSON-based) that describes agent capabilities and execution endpoints to track agent activities. ServiceNow supports version 0.3 of A2A.
- A2A Authentication: Requires authorization via Connection & Credential alias and connection records for both Agent Card and execution endpoints to securely link external agents to the ServiceNow AI Platform.
- Configuration Properties: Properties such as
snaia.externalagents.enabledto enable external agents andsnaia.externalagents.parallelconversations.enabledto control simultaneous conversations are available to tailor integrations.
What You Can Expect
By integrating external AI agents using this protocol and configuration, ServiceNow customers can extend their AI capabilities beyond the platform, leveraging third-party AI providers seamlessly within AI Agent Studio workflows. This results in more versatile, context-aware AI interactions that can remember user preferences, utilize rich knowledge graphs, and support multiple simultaneous conversations, thereby enhancing automation efficiency and user satisfaction.
Integrate and configure external agents with the ServiceNow agentic AI system using Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol integration to use in agentic workflows created in the 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 can connect your agent to the ServiceNow agentic AI system using the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol integration. To do this, you must have a Connection & Credential alias record that connects to your agentic AI provider.
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.
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 |