ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott hailed AI as an “absolute requirement” for the survival of humanity at the supplier’s Knowledge 2025 customer and partner conference in Las Vegas.
“AI is civilization’s opportunity of this century. It is a gateway to prosperity. It is the only $22tn global market opportunity between now and 2030. It’s the only opportunity to take out $4tn in operating expenses. This is not an incremental change. This intelligence super-cycle is an exponential transformation, and it is bigger than the internet.”
ServiceNow is putting the same emphasis on agentic AI as other big enterprise software firms, such as Oracle and Salesforce.
It announced an increase in the embedding of agentic AI in its service platform, that was originally developed for IT service management, with its Now platform.
The supplier said it was launching new AI agents across ITSM, IT Operations Management (ITOM), IT Asset Management (ITAM), Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), Operational Technology (OT) and its Data Foundation. It said it is projecting a future of “zero outages, zero downtime and zero service desk incidents”.
In a statement, Pablo Stern, executive vice-president and general manager of technology workflows at ServiceNow, said: “By combining powerful AI agents with our proven enterprise workflow capabilities – all on our trusted AI platform – we’re redefining what’s possible. IT becomes truly autonomous: able to reason, take action and drive outcomes. This is the new standard for autonomous IT, tailored to your organisation, on your terms.”
The supplier also announced an AI Control Tower, which is “a centralised command centre to govern, manage, secure and realise value from any ServiceNow and third-party AI agent, model and workflow on a single unified platform”.
Speaking to Computer Weekly at the event, Nirankush Panchbai, senior vice-president of product for Now platform, said: “The AI Control Tower will manage workflows with agents from ServiceNow but from others as well. It is essentially a command centre to govern and manage your entire AI from strategy and value, doing risk and compliance, securing your AI agents and managing your AI workforce.
“It’s a piece of software, embedding dashboards, workflows and insights embedded in a workspace. It is built on our CMDB [configuration management database], elevated to manage AI assets, as with previous IT systems. And it is not a system of insight – it is a system of action, for example, on the security operations of an agent.”
Amit Zavery, president, chief product officer and chief operating officer at ServiceNow, said in a press statement: “As AI agents proliferate across enterprises, coordinating their work becomes as critical and complex as leading human employees, and companies need new tools to direct this new digital workforce.
“With AI Control Tower, businesses can oversee AI workforces in the same way the human workforce is managed, ensuring each agent is aligned, coordinated, optimised and delivering impact at scale. Only ServiceNow unites powerful workflows, industry-leading governance and seamless orchestration with agentic AI excellence, enabling customers to scale AI and drive real, measurable outcomes.”
The supplier cited a group of customers in support of the control tower concept.
Yashodha Bhavnani, vice-president of product management, AI products at Box, said: “As AI reshapes every corner of the enterprise, the future will belong to platforms that turn intelligence into real action.
“Together with ServiceNow, we’re reimagining the future of knowledge management as a catalyst for intelligent, agile enterprises. By embedding Box AI into ServiceNow’s advanced agentic workflows, we can transform how work gets done.”
Rao Surapaneni, vice-president of general management, business applications platform at Google Cloud said: “Our collaboration with ServiceNow empowers customers to unify AI agents across their entire IT estates, speeding up business decisions with tools like ServiceNow’s new AI Control Tower.”
Ulrich Homann, corporate vice-president at Microsoft, added: “As we enter a new era of agentic AI, we look forward to harnessing ServiceNow’s AI Control Tower and AI Agent Fabric to deliver a new level of governance and orchestration for our AI agents so we can better push the boundaries and scale across several platforms for our customers.”
Agent Fabric is described by ServiceNow as an “AI agent-to-AI agent, AI agent-to-tool, or even agentic system-to-agentic system, using common protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) and Agent2Agent protocol (A2A). This allows both ServiceNow and third-party AI agents, tools and systems to dynamically exchange information, coordinate tasks, and take action in real time.”
ServiceNow parks CRM tanks on Benioff’s lawn
ServiceNow also parked its tanks on Salesforce’s CRM lawn at the event, billing this initiative as the “next milestone in a groundbreaking CRM designed to disrupt an industry long dominated by outdated, overbuilt systems. ServiceNow is reimagining CRM for the AI era to sell, fulfill and service on one unified platform to drive exceptional end-to-end experiences”.
The supplier announced “new AI agents for CRM that can complete tasks autonomously, scale call centers and sales teams, and make true self-service a reality. Traditional CRM serves as a system of record ending at the front office, putting customer acquisition and retention at risk. ServiceNow CRM is built for an AI-first world, providing personalised and proactive experiences across the entire customer lifecycle.”
John Ball, executive vice-president and general manager of CRM and Industry Workflow Products, said: “Far beyond rebranded chatbots, we’re enabling our customers to orchestrate end‑to‑end sales and service on a single AI-powered platform.”
As customer testimony, ServiceNow cited Paolo Juvara, chief digital transformation officer at Pure Storage: “Traditional CRMs can’t keep up with the ever-increasing customer demands for highest-quality service. With ServiceNow CRM, we’re putting AI to work to drive customer loyalty through faster resolutions, lower case volumes, accurate configurations, while also reducing costs”.
Tiffany Smith, chief security officer and head of IT operations at Farm Credit Mid-America, added: “We have a strong vision for how technology can better serve rural communities and agriculture – and ServiceNow is helping us bring it to life.
“With ServiceNow’s AI-powered platform, we can ensure our team members have the tools and the insights they need to resolve issues faster and deliver the consistent, quality service our customers count on. It’s about more than just managing costs and finding efficiencies – it’s about driving innovation and fulfilling our commitment to put customers at the heart of everything we do.”
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