AI, as a technology, is evolving quickly. Already, conversations are moving on from generative AI and the biggest buzz today is caused by a new form of artificial intelligence, known as agentic AI.
The difference between the two systems is profound. GenAI, as the name suggests, generates content such as words, images and even songs based on a human’s prompt.
But agentic AI is capable of so much more. It can make decisions and take actions on its own to achieve a specific goal that the human sets. These AI Agents can use multi-step reasoning, a bit like humans, drawing on their prior experience and using additional tools to complete their objectives. With the huge potential of agentic AI, companies don't want to be left behind. Thankfully, when it comes to ServiceNow and AI, there are several tools available to
How will AI Agents help my business?
While GenAI responds to a person’s input as a one-off, agentic AI understands a person’s intent and acts autonomously in pursuit of a stated goal. It’s no surprise, then, that the impact of agentic AI for businesses is potentially enormous.
Imagine having a legion of digital workers that you can set to tackle some of your company’s most routine or fiddly tasks. That helps free up your people, automating the parts of the job they don’t enjoy or that are least valuable, and lets them focus on where they can make the biggest impact.
Some businesses are already deploying AI Agents to answer basic customer service questions, for example, allowing staff to concentrate on solving the issues where human judgement and personalised engagement is most important.
Agentic AI expands your capacity too, as these AI Agents have the benefit of operating around the clock and never needing time off. Suddenly you can have no limitations about working outside office hours, at weekends or on holidays – becoming more productive and serving a larger audience as well.
As as example, this might allow documents to be processed and customer queries answered even when your office is technically closed. Or software code to be developed and new insights identified overnight for your human staff to pick up and run with in the morning.
In short, AI Agents work with and alongside your human workforce and represent a massive leap forward in what levels of productivity can be achieved.
Keeping AI under control
If you’re a business leader, this vision of a more agentic future is undeniably exciting. The possibilities feel almost endless. But, as with any new technology, there needs to be a note of caution too.
As growing numbers of organisations embrace AI, and its reach and depth extends throughout their IT environments, the risk is that it actually adds to complexity instead of reducing it. In other words, rather than streamlining operations and improving efficiency, a series of disconnected AI tools could threaten to make things worse.
Thankfully, ServiceNow offers a series of related tools that help you manage, integrate and ultimately maximise the value of your AI stack:
AI Agent Control Tower
AI Control Tower provides a central place where you can see all of the AI Agents and systems at work across your business, letting you analyse and understand their impact. It even recommends ways to optimise their work too.
Think of it as a detailed dashboard, dedicated to your company’s AI Agents – a single view of what’s going on and how you can improve it.
This way, ServiceNow empowers you to keep control of the AI within your environment, making sure it works for you effectively. And crucially, AI Control Tower makes it easy for you to calculate ROI through its centralised overview.
AI Agent Orchestrator
AI Agent Orchestrator is a tool ServiceNow provides that takes the different AI Agents doing their various tasks across your business and coordinates them into a seamless whole.
Like the conductor of an orchestra, it brings the individual parts together, supervising and guiding them so they all work in harmony. Importantly, like AI Agents themselves, the AI Agent Orchestrator automates this without the need for human intervention.
This joined-up approach becomes increasingly crucial as organisations add new AI Agents into their tech stacks, each specialising in a particular task. After experimenting with one or two such AI Agents, it’s common for organisations to grasp their potential across more and more parts of the business.
Siloed AI Agents are going to have the same issues as siloed systems and teams, which is why ServiceNow's AI Agent Orchestrator makes sure this growing digital workforce always operates in sync.
AI Agent Fabric
AI Agent Fabric provides an advanced way of integrating a company’s data with that of other companies.
Through the AI Agent Fabric, you can send one of your AI Agents to query another database. It’ll fetch the answer, without needing to bring all of the data with it. This is known as “zero copy” integration, and it’s an increasingly important approach to data governance in today’s digital world.
Needless to say, the zero copy integration delivers a much faster experience than before, as the AI Agent doesn’t need to lug around all the data involved. These more timely responses help across the business, driving greater employee productivity and operational efficiency, as well as higher customer satisfaction. As a user, you don't need to leave ServiceNow, since the AI Agent fabric allows your AI Agents to gather any data needed.
But it also reduces costs and enhances security, as there’s no need to store huge quantities of data yourself.
ServiceNow – the perfect platform for AI Agents
Taken together, ServiceNow’s agentic AI tools – in the form of AI Control Tower, AI Agent Orchestrator and AI Agent Fabric – are a powerful combination. They will enhance the AI capabilities of virtually any organisation, creating a more streamlined approach and driving the best return on your AI investment.
It’s understandable why there’s so much talk about AI Agents today. They’re a game-changing technology for businesses, with the potential to provide unprecedented levels of productivity. But they have to be set up in the right way.
As ServiceNow shows, that needn’t be a problem. ServiceNow is the platform providing the right tools for AI Agents to achieve their incredible potential.
If you’re curious about agentic AI, but worried about the complexities and complications it might bring, then ServiceNow provides all the tools and reassurances you might need.
It’s time to jump in. The agentic AI future is here to explore.
If you want a helping hand to make sure you're using ServiceNow and AI to its fullest, check out our AI page.
