'Advisory AI has run its course': ServiceNow wants agents working in every corner of your business
A big update to ServiceNow’s Autonomous Workforce service looks to ramp up automation
ServiceNow is targeting mass integration of agents across an array of business functions with a major expansion of its Autonomous Workforce service.
At the company’s annual Knowledge conference in Las Vegas, ServiceNow unveiled a series of new “AI specialists” aimed at automating tasks spanning a range of domains, from IT operations to customer relationship management (CRM) and security.
The move by ServiceNow comes amid what it describes as a transformative shift in the evolution of generative AI.
Enterprises are now moving beyond simple AI assistants to more intuitive agents capable of handling tasks on behalf of the worker, rather than acting as a mere complementary tool.
"Advisory AI has run its course; enterprises need AI that senses, decides, and securely acts in accordance with organizational guardrails,” said Amit Zavery, ServiceNow’s president, CPO, and COO.
“With ServiceNow expanding Autonomous Workforce across critical business functions in the enterprise, organizations can deploy AI specialists to act at scale, from a single, governed platform, with full audit trails, role-scoped permissions, and enterprise context built over decades of enterprise operations.”
Building an “AI workforce”
A key focus of the Autonomous Workforce expansion hinges on automation in IT operations, with the company noting that teams now face huge backlogs of manual work.
Initial testing of its previously-announced L1 IT Service Desk AI Specialist found it is delivering marked benefits for teams, resolving cases 99% faster than human workers.
Capitalizing on those findings, the company unveiled a raft of new AI specialists with applications in infrastructure monitoring, asset lifecycle management, and site reliability engineering (SRE).
Honeywell is among those already using ServiceNow’s AI specialists in IT operations, helping to streamline tasks for teams.
“Our AI assistant ‘Red’ eliminated the majority of service desk conversations, saving time for employees and our IT organization,” said Sheila Jordan, SVP and chief digital technology officer at Honeywell.
“By operating an AI-enabled workforce at enterprise scale, we’re unlocking new levels of efficiency and accelerating business transformation.”
New AI specialists across employee services, including HR, finance, and legal departments were also touted by ServiceNow at Knowledge 2026 this week.
The company noted that around 23 million employees use its employee portal each month, generating more than 40 million cases annually – most of which is “routine, repeatable work” that is ripe for automation.
Again, initial testing in these areas revealed AI specialists were capable of resolving 91% of cases without reassignment and human intervention.
“Requests are deflected before they become cases, and when cases are created, they route directly to the right AI specialist,” the company explained in a blog post. “
This allows business operations teams to focus on tasks like workforce planning, supplier strategy decisions, financial planning, contract negotiations, and more.”
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