Knowledge 2026 drew more than 20,000 attendees and delivered a clear message: AI isn’t a future promise; it’s doing real work in enterprises right now. From major platform announcements to live customer activations at the Knowledge Expo, the theme of putting AI to work for people ran through every moment of the event.
Whether you were there in Las Vegas or followed along remotely on Workflow, here are the top moments from this year’s event.
The word that echoed throughout the Knowledge Expo this year was “autonomous.” Autonomous IT and AI agents are here. They’re not going to transform the world of work at some point; they’re doing it now.
It’s just in time, explained ServiceNow Chairman and CEO Bill McDermott in his opening keynote. He sees a blind spot when the media and Wall Street talk about the future of AI.
“We sit at the epicenter of how enterprises are actually run, and we see things ahead of the headlines,” he said. “The world of work is being remade.”
The world may face a 50-million-person labor shortage by 2030, McDermott said, but AI agents and robots are ready to get to work. “They are ideal partners to complement the human workforce, ensuring all of you rise with the AI revolution.”
Speed without governance is dangerous, however. Highlighting a recent calamitous incident where an AI agent deleted an entire customer database in nine seconds, McDermott said that’s what AI can do when no one is watching.
“That’s why business requires a model that thinks and workflows that act with integration and intelligence,” he said. “Governance isn’t a feature; it’s the whole ballgame.”
That conviction gave rise to one of the event’s most significant announcements, and one of the most pivotal for enterprise AI adoption. ServiceNow AI Control Tower can now discover, observe, govern, secure, and measure AI across any system in the enterprise.
It’s much more than a compliance tool. It's the foundation that makes autonomous AI trustworthy enough to run core business operations.
Making its debut at Knowledge, ServiceNow Otto is the redesigned AI interface that combines Now Assist, Moveworks (now ServiceNow EmployeeWorks), and AI Experience.
Unlike competing AI systems, Otto takes natural-language requests in text or voice, spans the enterprise, understands intent, routes work, and completes it across systems and departments. It gets work done.
At the same time, ServiceNow AI Control Tower logs each interaction, enforces policies, and explains each decision. “Employees just ask ServiceNow Otto, and it can handle the rest within the guardrails the enterprise requires,” said Bhavin Shah, senior vice president and general manager of employee experience and AI at ServiceNow.
NVIDIA Co-founder, President, and CEO Jenson Huang joined McDermott and ServiceNow Vice Chairman Nick Tzitzon on the keynote stage to share his views on where AI is headed.
When Huang appeared at Knowledge two years ago, the conversation focused on generative AI. But in 2026, the AI story has evolved. “Agentic AI has arrived,” he said. “We now have the ability to understand intent, reason what the solution will be, and use tools to solve and do work. AI agents are now everywhere.”
His advice to business leaders was straightforward: Seize this AI moment. He described AI as a productivity and ambition elevator. “AI is doing nothing but creating jobs,” he told the crowd, reporting that his employees are all using AI agents and they’ve never been busier.
Huang described AI agents as part of a five-layer AI cake, with the application and orchestration layer—ServiceNow's domain—sitting on top of energy, chips, infrastructure, and large language models.
“I said two years ago that ServiceNow is essentially the AI enterprise operating system,” he said, reiterating that AI agents must run safely and with controls.
In support of that, McDermott and Huang announced Project Arc, an enterprise autonomous desktop agent that’s secured by NVIDIA OpenShell and governed by ServiceNow AI Control Tower.
ServiceNow announced 20 new AI specialists that facilitate autonomous work across IT, HR, customer relationship management (CRM), employee services, legal, finance, security and risk, and other areas. More specialists are to come, according to Kellie Romack, chief digital information officer at ServiceNow.
“These AI specialists are trained to do specific jobs, they have assigned roles, are assigned to existing teams, and they execute workflows end to end,” said Romack. “You truly get AI that thinks and workflows that act.”
Some organizations are already seeing results. At ServiceNow, a Level 1 IT Service Desk AI Specialist is resolving IT cases 99% faster than humans.
Similarly, autonomous customer relationship management (CRM) is already resolving more than 100 million customer cases each month, orchestrating over 16 million orders, and configuring more than 7 million quotes.
Some of the most compelling moments at Knowledge 2026 weren't on the keynote stage; they were at the Knowledge Expo. Organizations such as the National Hockey League, Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team, CVS, and FedEx showed ServiceNow operating in live, high-stakes environments. These activations made abstract AI capabilities tangible, demonstrating what it actually looks like when intelligent workflows run the enterprise.
These are just the highlights. Watch the keynotes and explore product and solution sessions on demand.
