ServiceNow Virtual Agent can definitely be improved. ServiceNow has already deployed Now Assist, which is the higher version of ServiceNow Virtual Agent. Now Assist heavily uses machine learning and natural language processing. Along with Now Assist, ServiceNow Virtual Agent can definitely be improved. If you have dedicated developers and experienced ServiceNow developers, you can improvise it by writing code also, if needed.
The only concern about ServiceNow Virtual Agent is that it helps in the notification, but in most companies, employees do not always work on ServiceNow. There are administrators and end users. What happens with end users is that if your screen is open with the service portal and ServiceNow Virtual Agent on your screen, you do get your notifications. But if you accidentally close the window or the browser and start to work on something else, even if ServiceNow Virtual Agent responds, the notification is not sent to that person. ServiceNow has changed the game by bringing Now Assist and other AI related aspects where they have leveled up on the virtual agent capability. I would say that ServiceNow Virtual Agent as an individual entity can be improved in certain aspects. The biggest improvement needed for ServiceNow Virtual Agent is that it is currently only available on the service portal. If a person logs into ServiceNow and they are a fulfiller, in order to access ServiceNow Virtual Agent, they will have to open their service portal and keep it open until they receive the notifications. If ServiceNow Virtual Agent is available on the classic UI itself, the moment any fulfiller logs into ServiceNow, they do not have to additionally go on to the portal. That would be more helpful and would save some time. ServiceNow in general is doing a good thing across all the modules. I do not have any negative feedback to provide. The whole AI thing that has come after the Xanadu upgrade and then the Zurich upgrade, things are slowly improving and the way ServiceNow is building the build agent and other aspects, I do expect some really interesting and innovative features in the next year from the Australia release.
Even though the way that the developers program the topics for the Virtual Agent is very intuitive and flexible, there is some room for improvement. There are things that can be done visually, and there are also things that can be done through JavaScript. They can help the developers with ready-made structures or JavaScript structures or topics that can be integrated into the basic package. That would help a lot.
Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Feb 3, 2023
While interacting with the virtual agent, sometimes, in the middle of the conversation, the end-users wanted to go to a live agent because the natural language model (NLU) of ServiceNow couldn't understand what the end-user was saying. There were some occurrences where users would just opt for the live agent support, and the virtual agent would directly route them to a live agent. However, there were some ServiceNow bugs that we had reported. There was also a known error where if a virtual agent wanted to connect to a live agent, the live agent was not able to monitor whether the end-user was still there in the chat or not. If the end-user left the chat, the agent was not able to know that. The agents were just waiting for two or three hours, and the conversation was not ended by the system as well. So, the problem was that the conversation was not ending. An end-user left the chat, but the agent didn't know if the user was there on the other end or not. This problem was fixed in the San Diego release. The language or multilingual features where the machine was doing the whole thing was a little bit tricky. They have been improving the NLU models, but if we wanted to opt for a multilingual virtual agent, we had to train it for NLU properly. That was still a tricky part of ServiceNow. There were occurrences where the machine was not recognizing the topic correctly and not routing the users to the correct topic. It was specifically related to the Spanish language.
I am the owner and architect in the company with regard to permissions so everyone goes through me to manage their flows. If I could change the permissions so each department could see its own flows, it would simplify a lot in the process. It's something they should improve. I'd also like integration with AI search or any enterprise search machine. That would add such a strategic aspect because you'd no longer need to capture and understand everything and add a realm where you can have a data lake of content. Conversely, imagine if you could give cognitive capabilities to an existing search engine, where the machine might be able to generate reports. It's the next step toward AI ops.
ServiceNow Virtual Agent offers customizable conversational flows for workflow management, automating routine IT tasks, and significantly reducing service desk workload to enhance user satisfaction with deep search capabilities and improved response times.ServiceNow Virtual Agent integrates a low-code platform that efficiently manages workflows through customizable conversational flows. It automates routine IT tasks such as password resets and ticket status checks, saving time and resources...
ServiceNow Virtual Agent can definitely be improved. ServiceNow has already deployed Now Assist, which is the higher version of ServiceNow Virtual Agent. Now Assist heavily uses machine learning and natural language processing. Along with Now Assist, ServiceNow Virtual Agent can definitely be improved. If you have dedicated developers and experienced ServiceNow developers, you can improvise it by writing code also, if needed.
The only concern about ServiceNow Virtual Agent is that it helps in the notification, but in most companies, employees do not always work on ServiceNow. There are administrators and end users. What happens with end users is that if your screen is open with the service portal and ServiceNow Virtual Agent on your screen, you do get your notifications. But if you accidentally close the window or the browser and start to work on something else, even if ServiceNow Virtual Agent responds, the notification is not sent to that person. ServiceNow has changed the game by bringing Now Assist and other AI related aspects where they have leveled up on the virtual agent capability. I would say that ServiceNow Virtual Agent as an individual entity can be improved in certain aspects. The biggest improvement needed for ServiceNow Virtual Agent is that it is currently only available on the service portal. If a person logs into ServiceNow and they are a fulfiller, in order to access ServiceNow Virtual Agent, they will have to open their service portal and keep it open until they receive the notifications. If ServiceNow Virtual Agent is available on the classic UI itself, the moment any fulfiller logs into ServiceNow, they do not have to additionally go on to the portal. That would be more helpful and would save some time. ServiceNow in general is doing a good thing across all the modules. I do not have any negative feedback to provide. The whole AI thing that has come after the Xanadu upgrade and then the Zurich upgrade, things are slowly improving and the way ServiceNow is building the build agent and other aspects, I do expect some really interesting and innovative features in the next year from the Australia release.
Even though the way that the developers program the topics for the Virtual Agent is very intuitive and flexible, there is some room for improvement. There are things that can be done visually, and there are also things that can be done through JavaScript. They can help the developers with ready-made structures or JavaScript structures or topics that can be integrated into the basic package. That would help a lot.
While interacting with the virtual agent, sometimes, in the middle of the conversation, the end-users wanted to go to a live agent because the natural language model (NLU) of ServiceNow couldn't understand what the end-user was saying. There were some occurrences where users would just opt for the live agent support, and the virtual agent would directly route them to a live agent. However, there were some ServiceNow bugs that we had reported. There was also a known error where if a virtual agent wanted to connect to a live agent, the live agent was not able to monitor whether the end-user was still there in the chat or not. If the end-user left the chat, the agent was not able to know that. The agents were just waiting for two or three hours, and the conversation was not ended by the system as well. So, the problem was that the conversation was not ending. An end-user left the chat, but the agent didn't know if the user was there on the other end or not. This problem was fixed in the San Diego release. The language or multilingual features where the machine was doing the whole thing was a little bit tricky. They have been improving the NLU models, but if we wanted to opt for a multilingual virtual agent, we had to train it for NLU properly. That was still a tricky part of ServiceNow. There were occurrences where the machine was not recognizing the topic correctly and not routing the users to the correct topic. It was specifically related to the Spanish language.
I am the owner and architect in the company with regard to permissions so everyone goes through me to manage their flows. If I could change the permissions so each department could see its own flows, it would simplify a lot in the process. It's something they should improve. I'd also like integration with AI search or any enterprise search machine. That would add such a strategic aspect because you'd no longer need to capture and understand everything and add a realm where you can have a data lake of content. Conversely, imagine if you could give cognitive capabilities to an existing search engine, where the machine might be able to generate reports. It's the next step toward AI ops.