ServiceNow launches Xanadu: New AI agents increase productivity and efficiency
The technology company ServiceNow has launched what it claims is its biggest AI platform release to date under the name Xanadu. It offers hundreds of additional new AI functions, known as AI Agents, as well as expanded partnerships that are designed to increase productivity and agility in companies and strengthen collaboration across the entire organization.
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Xanadu: On the road with AI agents
The company is now taking the next big step, as Dino Minichiello, ServiceNow's Country Manager Switzerland since January 2024, explained at a recent media event. Although digitalization is progressing steadily, it is not yet universal everywhere, especially in industry, according to Minichiello. That is why there is still some growth potential for ServiceNow. Generative AI is also opening up new opportunities. AI is now being used in many companies, but is often isolated to individual fields of application. This is where ServiceNow wants to start with the Xanadu release, namely through the integration of so-called AI agents. These enable round-the-clock productivity on a large scale for numerous use cases, including IT, customer service, procurement, human resources, software development and more. The ServiceNow AI Agents use advanced analytics that are integrated into the Now Platform. They evolve from simple, command-based tasks to deeper, context-based processing, while keeping humans involved to ensure optimal control and transparency, according to the statement. The first AI agent applications for customer service management (CSM) and IT service management (ITSM) will be available from November. These should significantly reduce the processing time of problems and at the same time increase the productivity of service employees.
New and expanded applications for the retail sector
With the Xanadu version, ServiceNow is massively expanding its GenAI offering, for example into security and threat management, where rapid responses can be crucial for securing IT environments. Now Assist for Security Operations (SecOps) uses AI-supported incident summaries and interactive Q&As to accelerate and streamline workflows and thus combat security threats more quickly. Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement Operations is another tool that ensures a smooth and simplified order acceptance process. Particularly worth mentioning: Employees can use Now Assist to initiate a purchasing request or access information via a natural language dialog without having to navigate complex systems.
New target groups within organizations can now also be addressed by the enhancements. For example, Retail Operations and Retail Service Management are new solutions available in the Xanadu version that unite the entire ecosystem of a retailer. Retail Operations uses AI and employee self-service to automate and simplify everyday processes for store employees. Seamless integration between different departments enables field service technicians to process support requests faster, and data analytics help managers make intelligent, data-driven decisions. Retail Service Management provides retailers with ServiceNow's customer service management capabilities, allowing customers to submit requests in-store and online for a holistic customer experience, while head office teams resolve support requests from both customers and store colleagues through a single system.
Partnership with Microsoft
With these solutions, ServiceNow is not only focusing on large companies, but also increasingly on SMEs. The new partnership with Microsoft can play an important role here, especially as their products are already in use in most companies. Microsoft Co-Pilot, for example, is now integrated into the Now Assist Platform. This allows Co-Pilot to forward automated self-service requests from employees - e.g. ordering a new laptop - to Now Assist in Microsoft Teams. Now Assist responds to the requests from Teams in real time and automatically initiates the necessary workflows.
In principle, ServiceNow's solutions are also aimed at all users who are under high regulatory pressure, such as energy service providers, public transport companies and financial service providers. With the aforementioned Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement, supply chain risks can also be better taken into account, leading to greater compliance with regulations. Overall, ServiceNow sees its new solutions as tools for companies to save costs thanks to digitized processes. Nadia Bischof, responsible for the SME business at ServiceNow Switzerland, put it this way at the media orientation: "Today it's all about saving money with ITno longer about saving in IT".
The innovations mentioned here as part of the Now Platform Xanadu are now available for all customers in the ServiceNow Store.
