Now Assist for Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) release notes
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Summary of Now Assist for Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) Release Notes - Zurich
The Now Assist for Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) application integrates generative AI capabilities into Strategic Portfolio Management to enhance productivity and decision-making. It enables users to summarize feedback and documents, create stories from epics, generate project insights, create demands conversationally, and receive timely project updates. The Zurich release introduces multiple enhancements, AI model provider options, and UI improvements to streamline portfolio management workflows.
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Key Features
- Project Insights Email Scheduling: Configure and schedule project insights emails to project managers and users with customizable frequency (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly). Instantly send preview emails to track project milestones, delays, and critical status changes.
- Project Task Monitor AI Agent: Enable autonomous monitoring of critical path project tasks to receive proactive AI-driven alerts about potential delays via the project planning page.
- Identify Similar Demands Skill: Automatically detect and view existing similar demands based on contextual similarity in Name, Description, and Business Case to reduce duplication during demand creation or editing.
- Target Generation Skill: Accelerate creation of measurable targets by generating key fields from goal information, helping teams define clear outcomes efficiently.
- Acceptance Criteria Generation: Generate consistent acceptance criteria for user stories through AI, aligning story content with requirements using predefined templates.
- Enhanced Agile Story Generation: Convert epics into actionable user stories quickly with AI recommendations on the number of stories and content refinement.
- Refine Records Skill with Context Menu: Use AI-assisted text refinement across multiple SPM forms (e.g., Product Idea, Demand, Epic, Project, Story) to improve record quality and efficiency.
- Generative AI in Docs: Create, summarize, elaborate, and refine document content directly within Docs using Now Assist, enhancing content productivity.
- Support for Multiple AI Model Providers: Utilize Google Gemini (2.0 Flash, 2.5 Pro), AWS Claude (3.7 Sonnet), Now LLM Service, and Azure OpenAI (GPT-4.1) as AI backends for Now Assist skills and agents.
- UI and Experience Enhancements: New Coral theme as default for portals and mobile, revamped project insights configuration modal, renamed skills and buttons for clarity, and added options such as enabling/disabling critical task alerts.
- Role-Based AI Agent Execution: AI agents and scheduled jobs now run under a dedicated ppm.aiprojectmanageragent user role instead of administrator accounts, improving security and manageability.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Improved Project Visibility: Automated project insights emails and task monitoring provide proactive awareness of risks and status changes to help teams keep projects on track.
- Increased Efficiency in Demand and Story Management: AI assists in detecting duplicate demands, generating clear acceptance criteria, and rapidly breaking down epics into stories, reducing manual effort and errors.
- Enhanced Content Creation and Refinement: AI-powered content generation and refinement in Docs and record forms accelerate documentation and improve clarity.
- Flexible AI Provider Options: Customers can leverage preferred AI models from multiple vendors to optimize performance, compliance, and cost.
- Streamlined Configuration and Access Control: Default activation of core Now Assist skills simplifies onboarding, while custom role ACL updates and dedicated AI user roles enhance security and governance.
- Modernized User Experience: Updated UI elements and themes improve usability and align with contemporary design standards, fostering adoption.
Activation and Related Features
Now Assist capabilities for SPM require activation of the Now Assist for Strategic Portfolio Management plugin. The application integrates with the broader Now Assist ecosystem, providing generative AI skills tailored for workflows such as feedback summarization, demand creation, and agile planning within ServiceNow’s Enterprise Agile Planning workspace.
The ServiceNow® Now Assist for Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) application introduces generative AI skills into Strategic Portfolio Management. You can summarize feedback or content in Docs, create stories for epics, generate project insights, create demands through conversations, and quickly gain updates into projects. Now Assist for Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) was enhanced and updated in the Zurich release.
Now Assist for SPM highlights for the Zurich release
Zurich Patch 5
- Review changes to Now Assist usage measurement.
Zurich Patch 4
- All Now Assist for SPM skills are activated by default.
- Use the identify similar records skill to find similar demands based on contextual similarity.
- Enable the project task monitor AI agent to autonomously monitor project tasks on the critical path of a project.
- Use the Send preview button to share a project insights email instantly.
- Generate measurable targets from goals information and optional context with the target generation skill.
Zurich Patch 1
- Use Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude on AWS as AI model providers for Now Assist skills and AI agents in addition to Now LLM Service and Azure OpenAI.
See Now Assist for Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) for more information.
New in the Zurich release
- Zurich Patch 4
- Schedule project insights email
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- Schedule project insights email in the Configure project insights modal. The project email is emailed to the project managers and users and continues on the selected schedule that you select until the project is inactive or paused.
- Schedule and instantly send the project insights email to your project managers by selecting the Send preview button.
- Track important updates such as the delayed end dates, the status turning red, or the state updates of your projects and receive project insights email on the schedule that you select.
- Select the email frequency that works for you: weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.
- Monitor critical elements such as milestones, resources, projects, and project tasks.
- Receive proactive, AI-based notifications when project milestones or critical tasks could lead to delays using Monitor project task agent. Use the Enable critical task alerts option from planning page to enable the project task monitor AI agent.
- Choose the recipients to whom you want to send the project insights email.
- Identify similar records using Now Assist
- Detect similar existing demand records when creating or editing a demand using the identify similar records skill. The skill compares the Name, Description, and Business Case fields for contextual similarity.
- Accelerate target creation with the target generation skill
- Generate measurable targets from goals information and optional context with the target generation skill. The skill automatically populates key fields in the target creation form, helping teams define clear, measurable outcomes and create targets quickly.
- Generate acceptance criteria for stories
- Generate clear, consistent acceptance criteria for user stories with the acceptance criteria generation skill. By leveraging story context and predefined templates, the skill helps you align with requirements.
- Enhancements to Story generation
- Use the upgraded agile story generation skill to convert epics into actionable user stories quickly. Powered by an agentic workflow, the skill analyzes epic details to recommend the optimal number of stories, enables adjustments, refines story content, and creates story records.
- Zurich Patch 2
- Improve efficiency and quality using refine records skill with Now Assist Context Menu
- Simplify record creation and updates by using the refine records skill with Now Assist context menu. Improve record quality by enabling AI-assisted text refinement in the text fields of Product idea, Demand, Epic, Projects, Capability, Feature, Stories, Project tasks, Risks, Strategic priorities, Goals, Targets, Initiatives, Feedback, Milestones, and Story forms.
- Zurich Patch 1
- Configure ACLs for custom roles
- Update the ACLs for custom roles that require access to Now Assist skills.
- Generate and improve Docs content
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Help improve your content and productivity with the ability to enter custom prompts directly in the Docs, alongside the Summarize, Elaborate, and Shorten options.
Generate content with Now Assist for SPM directly in your Docs. In addition, summarize existing sections, elaborate where needed, and refine drafts to help improve your productivity.
You can interact with Now Assist directly in your Doc to create content, add context, or improve existing sections.
- New third-party AI model provider options available for Now Assist
- Google Gemini 2.0 Flash, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro, and AWS Claude 3.7 Sonnet are available for Now Assist skills and AI agents in addition to Now LLM Service and Azure OpenAI GPT-4.1 and GPT-4.1 mini.
UI changes
- More actions context menu UI enhancements
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- Email project summary option has been renamed to Configure project insights.
- Enable critical task alerts option has been added.
- Disable critical task alerts option has been added.
- Configure project insights modal UI enhancements
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- Email project summary modal has been renamed to Configure project insights modal.
- Disable email summary check box has been renamed to Pause cadence check box.
- Choose topics, personalize content, and set frequency setup have been added.
- Project tasks, Milestones, and Resources check boxes have been added.
- Include critical path task changes check box has been removed.
- Schedule and send button has been renamed to Schedule button.
- Send preview button has been added to send an email instantly.
- Skill name updates
- The email project summary skill has been renamed to the project insights generation skill.
- Demand Management UI changes
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- The Identify similar demands button has been added to the demand form to identify and view any similar demands with the identify similar demands skill.
- The Similar Demands related list has been added, which displays the list of similar demand records identified by Now Assist.
- Coral theme
- Coral is now the default theme for new portal, web, and mobile experiences with Next Experience or Core UI enabled. This theme provides a fresh look and feel, featuring brand-neutral illustrations to enhance your user experience. A dark theme option is available for web and mobile experiences.
- Email project summary modal UI changes
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- The Enable AI Agents to monitor task changes on the critical path check box has been added.
- The Users option has been added under Recipients to add recipients or users for the project summary email.
Changed in this release
- Zurich Patch 5
- Changes to Now Assist usage measurement
- Starting with Zurich 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.
- Zurich Patch 4
- Some Now Assist skills, agents, and agentic workflows are turned on by default
- The skills are automatically available to appropriate role users for the application, such as ITIL roles on incident forms or change forms. This change simply activates the skill and does not touch the roles that may be
needed to use the skill. The new default behavior works as follows:
- New customers: When you install a Now Assist product, designated skills and agentic workflows are turned on automatically.
- Existing customers who are upgrading (starting with Zurich Patch 4): Any previously unconfigured skill, agent, or agentic workflow is turned on automatically (the AI asset was never configured and turned on, then turned off again). Previously configured skills and agentic workflows that were turned on, then off, remain inactive.
- Zurich Patch 1
- ppm.ai_project_manager_agent user role
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The agentic workflow, agents, and scheduled jobs are configured to run under the new ppm.ai_project_manager_agent user role instead of the administrator account.
Activation information
Now Assist features are available with activation of the Now Assist for Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) plugin. For more information, see Install Now Assist plugins.