Now Assist context menu

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Now Assist context menu

    The Now Assist context menu leverages generative AI to help ServiceNow agents efficiently summarize, create, and edit written content such as emails, chat replies, and knowledge base articles. It streamlines communication and documentation tasks by providing AI-powered suggestions and editing capabilities directly within various ServiceNow workspaces.

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    This feature is available in the Next Experience interface for multiple ServiceNow products, including Customer Service Management (CSM), Human Resources (HR), IT Service Management (ITSM), Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), and IT Operations Management (ITOM). It is not supported in the Core UI.

    Key Features

    • Contextual AI Assistance: The menu is accessible from any enabled field where the floating Now Assist button appears, offering options to summarize, create, or modify content.
    • Content Editing for Knowledge Base Articles: Users can elaborate or shorten selected text within articles and insert AI-generated revisions, improving authoring efficiency.
    • Change Tone Capability: Users can adjust the tone of content to casual, formal, or sympathetic, enhancing communication style based on audience needs.
    • Email Recommendations: AI-generated template suggestions assist in composing or replying to emails, supporting new, forward, reply, and reply-all scenarios.
    • Record Summarization: The menu can generate, expand, collapse, share, regenerate, or copy summaries of records within workspaces and UI16, aiding quick understanding of key information.
    • Risk Explanation for Change Requests: After risk assessment, users can view AI-generated explanations directly in the workspace or UI16 interface.
    • Usage Monitoring and Custom Skills: A dedicated dashboard provides insights into context menu usage, and custom skills can be deployed using the Now Assist skill kit.

    Configuration and Controls

    • Refinement Limits: Administrators can configure a maximum number of content refinements per session to balance AI usage and performance.
    • Minimum Word Count for Activation: The appearance of the Now Assist icon can be controlled by setting a minimum selected word count, ensuring relevance of AI suggestions.
    • Advanced Filtering: The visibility of quick actions in the context menu can be managed via the wwnaquickactions table.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Enhances agent productivity by automating and accelerating content creation and editing tasks.
    • Improves communication quality with tone adjustment and AI-generated suggestions tailored to various contexts.
    • Facilitates knowledge management through AI-powered article authoring and content refinement.
    • Supports better decision-making with AI-explained risk assessments and summarized records.
    • Allows customization and control over AI interactions to align with organizational policies and usage patterns.

    The Now Assist context menu uses generative AI to help agents summarize, create, and edit written content, thus streamlining their writing tasks.

    Agents produce various types of content, including emails and chat replies. The Now Assist context menu uses generative AI to assist agents in summarizing, creating, and editing emails and chat replies. Agents can preview AI generated content, scroll through previously created content, and refine the text using the AI. The Now Assist context menu can be triggered from any application or field in a ServiceNow workspace where the Now Assist context menu is enabled.

    The Now Assist context menu unlocks the power of generative AI and is available in Next Experience for:
    • Customer Service Management (CSM)
    • Human Resources (HR)
    • IT Service Management (ITSM)
    • Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM)
    • IT Operations Management (ITOM)
    The Now Assist context menu isn’t available with Core UI.

    Using the Now Assist context menu

    The Now Assist context menu is available on any field where the floating Now Assist button (Now Assist context menu icon) appears. If you start typing in the field, a menu appears with the available Now Assist context menu actions. The Now Assist context menu helps you summarize, create or modify existing documentation.

    You can configure the Advanced filter to hide or show the Now Assist Context Menu quick actions option using the wwna_quick_actions table. To view more variable set configuration options, see nacm-variable-set-description.html.

    Chat window using the Now Assist context menu

    You can use the Now Assist context menu when communicating with users in Agent Chat:

    If it takes too long to generate text or the Now LLM Service isn't available, an error message appears.

    Agent Chat window with the Now Assist context menu icon

    Change request risk explanation using the Now Assist context menu

    The Now Assist context menu makes the change request risk explanation available on the workspace and on UI16 after assessment and calculation.

    When the risk is assessed and calculated, you’ll see the Explain risk button with the Now Assist The Now Assist icon. icon on the workspace showing the risk explanation in a dialogue box in the Record information section.

    The change request risk explanation powered by Now Assist.

    When the risk is assessed and calculated, you’ll see the Now Assist The Now Assist icon. icon against the Risk field on UI16, showing the risk explanation in a dialogue box.

    Now Assist showing the change risk explanation.

    Note:
    The risk explanation that is presented in the dialogue box is assessed and calculated on the change request form.

    For more information about risk assessment and calculation, see Risk assessment.

    Content editing in Knowledge Base articles using the Now Assist content menu
    The Now Assist context menu enables generative AI assisted content editing capabilities for Knowledge Base authoring and to provide resolution notes in workspaces and UI16.

    When you open a knowledge article and select the content in it, you’ll see the Now Assist The Now Assist icon. icon pop-up and float along with your mouse device.

    When you hover over the Now Assist icon, you’ll see the following menu options to help you edit the content:
    • Elaborate: Generative AI details the selected text.
    • Shorten: Generative AI shortens the selected text.

    Now Assist context menu options for the selected text.

    You can insert the generative AI elaborated or shortened content into the Knowledge Base articles, using the Insert button and update or publish them.

    Insert the AI generated text into the Knowledge Base article.

    For more information about generating Knowledge Base articles using the Now Assist context menu, see Edit an article using the Now Assist context menu.

    Change Tone using Now Assist context menu
    The Now Assist context menu enables users to change the tone of their content. Users can choose between casual, formal, and sympathetic tone to enhance their content further, using the generative AI capabilities.
    When you hover over the Now Assist icon or select Refine menu, you see Change Tone menu option.
    You can further choose a preferred tone and select Formal, Casual, and Sympathetic. Review the changes and select Insert to finalize the new text.

    Now Assist change tone selections.

    Note:
    If you do not see the change tone option for your application or product, reach out to ServiceNow.
    Limit the number of content refinement calls using the Now Assist context menu
    Configure and limit the number of content refinements to the skill per session using the Now Assist context menu. By default, the maximum number of refinements isn’t set and you can configure to limit it.
    You can configure the refinement calls limitation at the Recommendations Dialog Props field in the Limit refinements record using the refineCount property.
    Note:
    The Limit refinements record is available in the Now Assist config var set record in the Now Assist Skill context menu application.

    Configure the content refine limits to using the refineCount property.

    You can set the refineCount as follows:
    • The default value of the property is -1. If the value is less than 0, then the number of refinements to the skill are unlimited.
    • If you provide 0 as the value, then the refine button will be disabled and the You reached the limit for refining content. message is displayed.

      The content refinement limited to zero or the refinements reached the maximum count.

    • If you configure it with a value greater than 0, you’ll be able to refine the content according to the set value. For example, if you set the refineCount to 2, then you will be able to refine the content only twice.

      The content refinement limit value set to two.

    Create knowledge article with open prompt
    Use NAcm to create inline knowledge article using open prompts. See Generate KB article with Now Assist context menu.
    Set the minimum word count for the Now Assist icon
    You can set a minimum word count required for the Now Assist icon to appear, to control when the icon is displayed based on content length. To set the minimum word count, update the value for the minSelectedWordCount property.