Introduction

Welcome to the Frequently Asked Questions guide for Now Assist for ITSM. Please comment if you have a question not addressed here, and keep checking back for updates.

Table of Contents

Features & Functionalities

Implementation & Enablement Guidance

Licensing & SKU-related

Data Security

General Questions

What is Now Assist for ITSM

1. What Now Assist for ITSM Capabilities are currently available out of the box for the Now Assist Admin panel?
   
   1. Case Summarization, Chat Summarization, Resolution Notes Generation.
2. What are the features being released in Q2 for Now Assist for IT Service Management?
   
   1. | New Feature/ Enhancement | What | Business Outcomes | Wow Factor |
      | -------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
      | Knowledge Generation | Generate a knowledge article leveraging information from a resolved incident | Deflect incidents and increase uptime by scaling requestor self-service content | Increase the supply of knowledge! Generate an engaging and to-the-point article using the details of a resolved incident. |
      | Prompt Management | Additional curated incident fields with OOTB prompt headers can be added as part of incident summarization | Configure summarization prompts to include additional fields and related lists. | Customers decide on the content that matters the most to include in their incident summaries. |
      | New Now LLM Virtual Agent Topics | Migration of high usage NLU-based topics for use with the LLM-powered Virtual Agent. | Provide templates for commonly used topics for admins to get time to value quicker with VA. | Quicker time to value by enabling commonly used NLU topics with the LLM-powered Virtual Agent |
      | Conditional Visibility/Access | Admins can now toggle Now Assist skills availability based on conditional criteria -- both in-product and in the Now Assist Panel. | Incident summarization and resolution note capabilities may be restricted based on record conditions. | Define availability based on user role of when Now Assist skills are surfaced. |
3. What ServiceNow version must a customer be on to leverage the May 2024 features?
   
   1. Washington DC Patch 3 (released in May 2024)
4. What are the required plugins?
   
   • Now Assist for Platform
     
   • Now Assist Admin Console
     
   • Now Assist Core
     
   • Now Assist Search (Optional)
     
   • Now Assist for IT Service Management
     
   • Service Operations Workspace
     
   • Advanced Work Assignment
     
   • Virtual Agent
     
   • For Core UI: Vancouver Patch 2 and later releases
     
   • For Service Operations Workspace for ITSM: Service Operations Workspace for ITSM version 3.1 and later versions
5. Can we expect enhancements with regards to Virtual Agent? Such as having more advanced communication experience from user perspective.
   
   1. Yes! The May release includes Out of the Box topics for the LLM-powered virtual agent. Prior releases included a conversational ordering experience and a natural Q&A experience as the Virtual Agent can read the Knowledge article and provide an answer. Customers can also create their own LLM powered topics.
6. If a chat is conducted between MS Teams and ServiceNow, could that chat be transferred and summarized?
   
   1. Yes – the chat transcript can be imported into the incident record to be reflected in any summarization and/or resolution notes generation.
7. Can Now Assist integrate with 3rd party Knowledge database?
   
   1. Generating answers via Now Assist for AI Search from 3rd party data sources (like SharePoint and Confluence) is on the roadmap, targeting Q2 – Q4 2024.
8. Does chat summarization work for custom Virtual Agent topics?
   
   1. Yes. Chat summarization considers the full conversation from the end user and the bot, so a Virtual Agent topic being customized does not affect how it is summarized.
9. How are the resolution notes generated?
   
   1. Resolution Notes Generation is based on the incident record data (short description, description, work notes, comments etc.).
10. What fields are taken from the incident to create the knowledge article?
    
    1. Short description, description, resolution notes, work notes, additional comments fields.
11. What ServiceNow Platform features are included with Now Assist for ITSM?
    
    1. Now Assist Admin, Now Assist Panel, Now Assist Search for Q&A, and Now Assist in Virtual Agent.
       
    2. Now Assist in AI Search combines the power of search with the Now LLM generative AI model to answer questions in user searches with actionable AI-generated summaries of relevant knowledge articles.
       
    3. Now Assist in Virtual Agent uses large language models (LLMs) and generative AI skills to improve deflection rates. Actionable Q&A Genius Result answers from knowledge article results found in Service Portal, Virtual Agent, Employee Center, and global searches. When a user submits a question in search, AI Search retrieves the top knowledge article result and passes it to the Now LLM for answer generation. Answers augment the user's search results, displaying as actionable Now Assist Q&A Genius Result answer cards. For reference, each answer card includes a link to its source knowledge article.
12. Will the Now Assist Admin panel and skills enablement work for custom apps?
    
    1. We are shipping 3-4 out-of-the-box skills; only those will be available in the Now Assist panel.

Implementation & Setup Questions

1. What implementation materials are external facing?
2. I am in a global organization, is Now Assist for ITSM available outside of the US and for other languages?
   
   1. Now Assist is available in all Geos. Today English is the primary language for most Now Assist features; additional languages are targeted for support in 2024 and 2025. Dynamic Translation is supported in Virtual Agent. Speak with your ServiceNow account team for details.
3. Are there any architecture documents for Now Assist for IT Service Management?
   
   1. 
      
   2. 
4. Where can I find additional details on the Now LLM?
5. What are good practices to setting up my Catalog Items so that they are conversational?
   
   1. Conversational catalog items in Now Assist in Virtual have the same limitations as NLU Virtual Agent today. Unsupported (non-conversational) items include but are not limited to:
      
      • Dependent questions, scripted UI policies
        
      • Custom variables, checkbox variables, multi-row
        
      • Client scripts
        
      • Advanced reference qualifiers
        
   2. Unsupported catalog items are ordered via a pop-up window
      
   3. How to tell if a catalog item is conversational: navigate to sc_cat_item > “Show VA render type”
      
      • See the full list at catalog_item_analytics
        
   4. Requirements
      
      • Now Assist SKU (Pro+ or Enterprise+)
        
      • Vancouver Patch 4, Washington DC
6. Does clicking on install in Now Assist Admin check on licensing entitlement first before sending the user to the store for activation?
   
   1. Licensing entitlement checks will happen in the Store.

Licensing & SKU-related

1. Do I need to have my own license for OpenAI or Azure OpenAI?
   
   1. No. Now LLM is the model used to power Now Assist for IT Service Management. Costs for any use cases, not powered by the NowLLM (VA), will NOT be passed to the customer.
2. If our company is using Azure OpenAI with Now Assist, does Now Assist include my Azure OpenAI subscription costs, i.e. the Tokens we consume using Azure OpenAI?
   
   1. No. To use Now Assist for IT Service Management, you will be leveraging the Now LLM to power the features.
3. Is Now Assist for ITSM available for all ITSM subscriptions?
   
   1. No. Now Assist for ITSM is a new SKU that customers can upgrade to called ITSM Pro Plus or Enterprise Plus. Speak with your ServiceNow account team to learn more.
4. What are the platform features that are included in ITSM Pro+ and Enterprise+
   
   1. Customers will be able to leverage Now Assist Admin, Now Assist Panel, and Now Assist in AI Search and Now Assist in Virtual Agent.
5. Is Now Assist for ITSM approved for use in GCC environments?
   
   1. As of the May 2024 release, Now Assist is not yet approved for GCC.
6. What is an ‘Assist’ and how does the Assist entitlement work?
   
   1. An Assist is a unit for measuring Gen AI usage. Each action a customer performs using Generative AI consumes one or more Assists. Assists are pooled across products on the contract and can be used on all instances mapped to the contract (prod and sub-prod).
7. Are there Integration Hub transaction costs for each API call to the Now LLM?
   
   1. No. Now Assist (incl the AI Controller) uses 'Assists;’ not API calls.
8. Does the Now Assist Admin Analytics page show how many “Assists” were consumed?
   
   1. No, Assists will show in Subscription Management

Data Security

1. How can I be sure my data is kept private?
   
   1. Every data exchange between the customer instance and the regional AI service node(s) is encrypted; any data in transit is protected with TLS 1.2. The input and output data is not cached or stored on the regional data center. See the Product-Specific Terms for more detailed information.
2. When it comes to training the large language model, will customer instance data be used for modeling and iterative improvements? Or is it just relying on data internal to ServiceNow with a generic model?
   
   1. Yes. Not only does Now Assist strip out Personally Identifying Information (PII) info prior to using data for training, it also gives customers options to opt out of data sharing to train LLM's 30 days after contracting.

General Questions

1. Is Now Assist functionality available on other modules such as Legal, HR Service Delivery too?
   
   1. Now Assist functionality is also available for other products like HR, CSM, ITOM and Creator.
2. How can a customer evaluate Now Assist prior to purchase?
   
   1. Ask your ServiceNow account team about an evaluation instance.
3. Will Now Assist in AI Search need model training as a prerequisite
   
   1. No, Now Assist in AI Search works on pre-trained model and will work out of the box.
4. Will customers have access to the Now LLM to develop custom Now Assist skills?
   
   1. Today customers do not have access to the model on its own, but a capability is planned for the H2 2024 timeframe to enable customers to create net-new Now Assist skills with prompt editability.
5. What is the difference between Genius Results within AI Search and answers generated by Now Assist?
   
   1. Genius result is the top result returned by AI search based on confidence score. Now Assist leverages AI Search behind the scenes applying AI capabilities on top of it to generate the answer.
6. If a chat is conducted through ServiceNow Sidebar and Microsoft Teams, is the summarization and resolution notes generation functionality available?
7. Can I change the configuration variable for chat summarization?
   
   1. No, it is not configurable, like Record Summarization. We take the chat transcript and send it for summarization.
8. Can we use Now LLM for one feature and Azure Open AI for another feature?
   
   1. ServiceNow determines the provider for each feature.
9. Are we supporting Now Assist for Search only for Knowledge Bases now?
   
   1. Q&A functionality works only over KB Knowledge and child tables and only for English. Other sources for Q&A will be prioritized over time.
10. What follow-up questions are we allowing users to ask on the Now Assist panel?
    
    1. We are supporting some basic follow-up questions like making it shorter, making it longer, or changing the tone to formal. If follow-up is enabled, customer data is sent to Azure Open AI. Customers will have the choice to disable in Now Assist Admin

Additional Resources

Now Assist for ITSM: Quick Start Guide

Product Documentation

• Now Assist for ITSM
• Now Assist in AI Search
• Now Assist in Virtual Agent