ServiceNow has launched its Now Assist for Virtual Agent solution, which leverages generative AI to improve the productivity of contact center agents and digital check-outs.
The offering promises to enhance workplace productivity without over-complicating an employee’s or customer’s expectations.
Moreover, ServiceNow aims to provide end-users with a chatbot that delivers fast and relevant answers for solving customer queries.
ServiceNow Chairman and CEO Bill McDermott added:
We’re building generative AI into our platform so customers can maximize their ROI: ‘return on intelligence.’ This is all about thoughtful, high-trust co-innovation as we find the balance between machine speed and human judgment.
ServiceNow will also work with NVIDIA and Microsoft to assist in delivering its virtual assist product and leveraging each firm’s generative AI innovations.
The vendor initially partnered with NVIDIA in May to enhance enterprise-grade IT systems and deploy transformative automation solutions.
McDermott said:
Enhanced by our strategic partnerships with NVIDIA and Microsoft, we are engineering smarter, fully automated workflows. We help our customers innovate completely new business models on ServiceNow as the intelligent platform for end-to-end.
McDermott also stated that ServiceNow is “leading the intelligence era.” The CEO noted how, after “years of AI investment”, ServiceNow can now put itself “at the center of an undeniable movement.”
Moreover, ServiceNow is attempting to provide an enterprise-grade AI product that offers deep customization capabilities while allowing a customer to scale, simplify, and optimize their CX workflows.
What’s New with Now Assist for Virtual Agent
Now Assist for Virtual Agent allows ServiceNow clients to leverage conversational AI to create and connect exchanges across the Now Platform – alongside automating responses to employee and customer queries.
For instance, the product provides a space within a buying journey for the customer to ask the ServiceNow virtual assistant a question. The service leverages the new AI integration to give immediate and informative responses based on internal data.
Moreover, the service includes additional information and data in its answers, including lines of code for product or engineering teams, product images, product videos, documents, and summaries of relevant articles.
Now Assist for Virtual Agent also gives users access to a low-code builder environment for the easy configuration and deployment of conversational AI experiences.
Moreover, with its project partner Microsoft, ServiceNow can leverage Azure OpenAI Service LLM and OpenAI API to provide Now Assist with direct access to general-purpose expansive language models.
This allows Now Assist for Virtual Agent to quickly and safely answer queries through multiple knowledge base articles without excessive searches. The Microsoft-AI integration also allows the service to provide additional resources – documents, code, etc. correctly and accurately.
CJ Desai, President, and Chief Operating Officer at ServiceNow, added
Now Assist for Virtual Agent is a powerful organic complement to the generative AI capabilities ServiceNow has already started to roll out. By embedding generative AI into the Now Platform, we are empowering our customers to radically improve productivity and realize the true potential of enterprise-grade AI.
Leveraging AI for Enterprise Usage
Neil Ward-Dutton, Vice President, AI, Automation and Analytics Europe, IDC, explained that enterprise-grade AI is experiencing “extraordinarily rapid growth” in business use cases.
Moreover, Ward-Dutton explained that Now Assist for Virtual Agent and its integrated capabilities contain the power and usability to suit a variety of enterprise use cases.
The VP noted that Now Assist for Virtual Agent can help with use cases such as customer/employee experience improvement and knowledge management, which Ward Dutton outlines as the “top of the list for those organizations making the earliest [AI] moves.”
Neil Ward-Dutton also added:
Generative AI advances are ushering us towards a future in which AI-powered capabilities are woven into processes, decisions, products, services, and experiences of all kinds
According to ServiceNow, its latest AI innovation allows clients to achieve an increased sense of personalization, relevancy, and contextualization for self-service CX avenues.
AI is increasing as a CX tool, and with significant technology partners like NVIDIA and Microsoft assisting ServiceNow in bringing automation into real-world use cases, the space will continue to evolve itself and its surroundings with unprecedented operational support.
