service now announced yesterday March 10th 2025 that they're making their biggest acquisition ever and not surprisingly it centers around Ai and it centers around search so they're acquiring move works for 2.85 billion uh the deal is expected to close the second half of 2025 it's a mix of cash and stock and again like I said this is the biggest acquisition ever almost $3 billion uh cash in stock so why is that important so there a couple things number one obviously if it needed to be done or not doesn't matter obviously service now is going all in on AI right you probably knew this already um but this is a clear tell that that's where they're going to be focused you think about it um you know the agenic AI right it also comes with that Enterprise search capability right and that's a key piece um they mentioned in their press release and some of the public statements that have come out since that this is an area in and of itself that presents a whole new um available Market that they can go after right a whole new area to grow and expand their revenue right that search component um a little bit about move works right so 2016 they develop AI um assistance kind of uh Focus right that's their focus um makes perfect sense given kind of service Nows now assist bundled into the Pro Plus platform um you think about the integration right a lot of talk out there about how the integration should be pretty easy of course it all comes down to execution um there's a lot of shared customers which I'll get to in a minute um but at the end of the day it also comes down to something really important that mcdermit said on the last earnings call uh those those three words CRM right they're competing against Salesforce um they're clearly trying to make a a play there to grab I would say market share but just penetration in general right establish themselves a little differently it's that evolution of service now um if you think about this is that opportunity right think about move Works think about that functionality it's the AI assistance it's that search component right and they're going to talk about over the coming months especially as they approach customers they talk to the market about justification of almost $3 billion they're going to talk about the fact that by doing this it allows them to enhance their capabilities and that customer experience and that sales um customer insights vessel of CRM right that's important to them you know deal cycle support uh Sable sales enablement support account hygiene right these are all areas that you're going to start to see service now further extend themselves both from a marketing both from a sales perspective relative to why you should consider service now um I mentioned that in integration component obviously it all comes down to can they execute as I mentioned but that's going to be a heavy push right the ease of being able to fold in this capability that's going to be really important um in fact um in one of the press releases that was out there Amit you know z um presidency Chief Operating Officer made a point to talk about that fold in capability right it's this idea that it combines service now's agenic AI and automation strengths that are already there combining it with move works right they had a AI assistant that Enterprise search technology right that's the play that's the pitch that's how they're going to try to get more deals closed right uh year- end earnings that came out recently they talked about that they have about 12% of their base a thousand customers that are paying for AI their AI offering they talk about the fact that $200 million is the annual reoccurring kind of ACV number tied to the Pro Plus skew remember PL plus it's kind of that add-on so it's still kind of driven that way unit but it also has the number of now assist in it which creates a consumption based mechanism which accelerates Revenue potentially over time that flywheel effect this is all ties together right they're going to try to continue to enhance their offering kudos to them they're going going to make Acquisitions and show the market that they're they're investing in this right this comes off an acquisition that was announced earlier this year um qan right that is an AI native conversation data platform uh midy year last year right you had Radeon which was another kind of n gen AI search powered search functionality right so it all ties together now they're putting $3 billion out there so if you're a customer right it makes sense for you to start thinking about this as well those that are interested already those that may have not been interested expect this pitch to be coming expect your time at knowledge which is in May to be very much centered around AI you already knew that but now this is another area where they're going to talk about enhancement they're going to talk about CRM they're going to talk about upgrades to Pro Plus let's not just wait to your renewal date let's talk about doing this sooner and so I would just say look all good but service now needs to still earn that business they need to show you the proof points talk about the seamless integration what is their plan how are they going to execute to that talk about why this will be valuable for you the customer not just generally price certainty price discounting future price protections right that whole now assist component that I've been talking about the consumption based model make them earn that opportunity and if they do great now obviously it comes down to did you get the right construct did you get the right pricing you have the right Investments all these things I continually talk about but look at the end of the day kudos to them for making these Investments but don't lose sight of this these Investments need to have a return the market they need to see a return and that's all going to come down to coming after you the customer to get what they want they need you to upgrade they need you to start using and so this is a point in time if you do it right you can leverage these dollars that are being spent to bring down a return you can leverage this opportunity if done right to also improve the world you already are sitting in improve the underlying itsm cost improve the CSM cost right impact maybe it wasn't giving you value have it push out of the deal even though maybe you aren't allowed to there's certain things you can do right now if done correctly to seize this opportunity