Platform Approval assistance AI agent

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 27, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Platform Approval Assistance AI Agent

    The Platform Approval assistance AI agent streamlines the approval process within ServiceNow by allowing approvers to view and act on pending approval requests directly through conversational interfaces such as Virtual Agent, ServiceNow Otto®, or Microsoft Teams. This eliminates the need to navigate through different pages to manage approvals.

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    The agent provides detailed information about approval requests and supports approving or rejecting them with contextual follow-up questions. It enhances decision-making by leveraging configured knowledge base (KB) articles and policies to generate a checklist that guides approval actions.

    Key Features

    • Role-based access: Requires roles such as approveruser and snrequestapproverread for basic operation, with optional roles like snchangeread to access additional approval records (e.g., Change Requests).
    • Context-aware assistance: Uses follow-up questions and KB article references to provide relevant information for each approval request.
    • Configurable checklist: Administrators can configure display fields and KB search fields to improve AI decision guidance.
    • Security and access controls: Supports role masking and requires configuration of security controls and cross-scope privileges to access restricted tables and records.
    • Integration: Accessible via AI Agent Studio, ServiceNow Otto panel, Virtual Agent, and Microsoft Teams.

    Practical Use and Setup

    • The agent reads from the Approvals [sysapprovalapprover] table to display relevant approval records assigned to the user.
    • Administrators must ensure appropriate roles are assigned and configure security controls to grant the AI agent access to required tables.
    • Cross-scope privileges may be necessary for tables with application scope restrictions.
    • Installation and entitlement details depend on your ServiceNow subscription and installed applications.
    • To access and manage the agent, navigate to All > AI Agent Studio > Create and Manage > AI Agents tab, then select the Approval assistance AI agent.

    Using the AI Agent

    Users can interact with the agent using natural language queries such as:

    • "Can you give me a list of pending approvals?"
    • "What are the pending approvals for time off requests?"
    • "Show me a list of pending approval requests by priority."
    • "Give me details about my approval request."

    After viewing the approval details, users can approve or reject a request directly by selecting the option or typing the command. Rejections require adding a comment to explain the reason.

    Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Simplifies and accelerates the approval workflow by enabling conversational approval management.
    • Improves decision accuracy through AI-assisted context and knowledge base integration.
    • Reduces the need for manual navigation and search, increasing efficiency for approvers.
    • Ensures secure and role-based access to approval information aligned with organizational policies.

    The Approval assistance AI agent is an AI agent that enables you to see your list of pending approvals, and the details about your pending approvals. You can then approve or reject requests and tickets from ServiceNow Otto® in Virtual Agent.

    Approval assistance AI agent overview

    Roles required: approver_user, sn_request_approver_read

    Note:
    Add the necessary roles to enable reading of other tables whose records go through the approval process. For example, you can add the sn_change_read role to read Change Request records.

    The benefit of using the Approval assistance AI agent is that you don't need to navigate to a specific page to approve your tickets. You can ask the AI agent about your pending approval requests and then tell the AI agent to approve or reject those approvals. The AI agent will ask follow-up questions and offer context-aware responses to simplify your experience.

    Ask you administrator to configure the display fields and the knowledge base (KB) search fields to generate a Gen AI checklist to assist the Approval assistance AI agent in making targeted decisions. The checklist uses KB articles and policies to assist the Approval assistance AI agent in decision making. The checklist fetches information from knowledge base articles about specific requester approval tickets. An approval_admin and admin role are required to configure the Approval assistance AI agent. For more information, see Configure Service Portal Approval Configuration record.
    Note:
    Provide cross-scope privileges to the ServiceNow Otto Agents for Requester plugin for tables whose records are restricted within the scope of an application. For more information, see Define cross-scope access to an application resource.

    Prerequisites and setup

    This AI agent is installed with certain applications. Check your entitlements for details.

    The Approval assistance AI agent displays data from the Approvals [sysapproval_approver] table. If the user has been assigned to approve a request, the approval record is shown.

    Role masking

    AI agents use role masking to determine which users can access them. Ones installed with your applications have specific roles that come included with the application. If you select Users with specific roles for user access, you must configure the security controls to include these roles. For the instructions to change the security controls, see Define security controls for an AI agent.

    In the data access settings, you must also add the necessary roles to enable reading of the tables for the records you want to evaluate for readiness. For example, you can add the itil role to the AI agent's list of approved roles so that it can access Incident records.

    Accessing the Approval assistance AI agent

    To access the AI agent:
    1. Navigate to All > AI Agent Studio > Create and manage.
    2. Go to the AI Agents tab.
    3. Select Approval assistance AI agent.

    Sample utterances

    After the agent has been activated in AI Agent Studio, enter phrases such as the following or similar queries to run the AI Agent in Virtual Agent, the ServiceNow Otto panel, or Microsoft Teams.

    • Can you give me a list of pending approvals?
    • What are the pending approvals for time off requests?
    • Show me a list of pending approval requests by priority.
    • Give me details about my approval request?

    Performing approval action on an approval record

    The Approval assistance AI agent shows approval requests that require an action on your part. After the approval information is provided by the agent, select Approve or Reject for a specific approval record, or type Approve or Reject. If you reject an approval request, then add a comment about the rejection reason.
    Figure 1. Approve or reject an approval record
    ServiceNow Otto Approve or Reject options for an Approval.