**As of June 2024 - Washington GA Patch 5**

** What's New and improved**

Now Assist in Virtual Agent provides a new low-code setup page that guides you through creating an LLM-powered Virtual Agent. You can access it either from the Conversational Interfaces Home page or from the _Now Assist Admin > Features > Platform > Conversational Experience_. Check out the YouTube video below to learn more!

For those who already have keyword or NLU topics created, you can now migrate your existing topics to LLM-based topics while maintaining its intent and topic flow.

You also have the ability to create different "Assistants" with unique chat experiences. Notifications are also now supported. For conversational catalog requests, HTML, Masked, and Duration variable types are now supported. Some limitations with client scripts and UI policies have been removed. To learn more about how catalog ordering is supported, see the article: [How to request catalog items in Now Assist in Virtual Agent.](https://www.servicenow.com/community/virtual-agent-nlu-articles/how-to-request-catalog-items-in-now-assist-in-virtual-agent/ta-p/2747811) We also have Dynamic Translation available for Now Assist in VA as an OEM (let ServiceNow cover the translation costs!)

Note that as of Washington DC release, new features and enhancements are not available in previous versions such as Vancouver. Catch up on the latest with our [release notes for Now Assist in Virtual Agent](https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/washingtondc-release-notes/page/release-notes/now-platform-capabilities/virtual-agent-rn.html).

** What's Different**

There are several differences between the existing Virtual Agent and Now Assist in Virtual Agent. For starters, Now Assist in VA does not use keywords or NLU to determine intent, so it does not use the NLU Workbench. Instead, it uses a Large Language Model for intent recognition and search which improves its accuracy. **The NLU-powered Virtual Agent is a separate chat client from Now Assist in Virtual Agent; NLU/keyword topics are not usable in Now Assist and vice versa with LLM topics not usable with NLU Virtual Agent.** There are several features not supported in Now Assist in Virtual Agent for August (yet!), keep this in mind when deciding when to uptake Now Assist in Virtual Agent:

* Contextual search (Zing)
* Some topic node controls are not yet supported, e.g., topic switching at the node level
* Language detection (Dynamic translation however, is supported.)
* Analytics dashboards are separate

Recent additions to the Washington release: Notifications and proactive triggers support.

For more guidance, see this article: [When to consider using Now Assist in Virtual Agent](https://www.servicenow.com/community/virtual-agent-nlu-articles/when-to-consider-using-now-assist-in-virtual-agent/ta-p/2772476)

** What's Coming\***

In our next release, Xanadu, Virtual Agent admins will be able to improve the user experience when it comes to the setup experience and the Virtual Agent client itself. We are also expanding channels support such as Slack, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and SMS. To learn more about the Xanadu release, see this new [post](https://www.servicenow.com/community/virtual-agent-nlu-articles/now-assist-in-virtual-agent-what-s-new-in-xanadu/ta-p/3016360)!

Learning more in the Now Learning course for [Now Assist for Virtual Agent implementation](https://nowlearning.servicenow.com/lxp/en/now-platform/now-assist-for-virtual-agent-implementation?id=learning%5Fcourse%5Fprev&course%5Fid=17601dc387abbd105aa9ca2d0ebb35d6).

**Continue to check out our Community Forum as more information becomes available!**

\*Safe harbor applies for forward-looking statements.​