ServiceNow CFO: Moveworks buy ‘extends our leadership in agentic AI’

“This acquisition really extends our leadership in agentic AI in ways that we believe are really going to redefine the value of AI at work for every employee,” says Gina Mastantuono

Digital transformation and workplace automation technology developer ServiceNow’s planned $2.85bn (£2.2bn) acquisition of Moveworks, which develops front-end AI assistant and enterprise search technology, is expected to become a major component of ServiceNow’s AI-focused Now platform.

ServiceNow wants to combine Moveworks’ technology with its own AI capabilities to drive agentic AI adoption across enterprise business clients.

ServiceNow president and CFO Gina Mastantuono, in an exclusive meeting with CRN, said that ServiceNow has been and will continue to be an agentic AI-first mover.

“The acquisition of Moveworks really extends our leadership in agentic AI in ways that we believe are really going to redefine the value of AI at work for every employee,” Mastantuono said

Moveworks is a pure play agentic AI employee experience with a powerful front-end AI assistant for employees that’s in use by over five million employees in some of the world's largest organisations, Mastantuono said.

“Think of a ChatGPT-like interface connecting all parts of the enterprise and all employees to answer any question about anything, and then when connected with ServiceNow having the ability to get it done right,” she said.

“Moveworks has an elegant front-end employee experience, plus really great enterprise search capabilities.”

ServiceNow’s acquisition of Moveworks helps shed light on the future of AI and agentic AI.

To learn more, read CRN’s full discussion with Mastantuono, which has been lightly edited for clarity.

At a high level, what is the acquisition of Moveworks about?

“At the end of the day, ServiceNow has been and will continue to be an agentic AI-first mover.

“The acquisition of Moveworks really extends our leadership in agentic AI in ways that we believe are really going to redefine the value of AI at work for every employee.

“We’re super excited. I think the why of the deal is clear. It's all about technology and talent.

“Moveworks is a pure play agentic AI employee experience, they built a powerful front-end AI assistant for employees, and it's used already by some of the world's largest organisations.

“Think Hearst, Instacart, Palo Alto Network, Siemens, Toyota, Unilever, just to name a few.

“And then an elegant front end, along with world-class enterprise search technology and a team of more than 500 employees with deep AI expertise.

“It’s really an extension of ServiceNow’s strength.

“We like to call this strength upon strength, because our built-in agentic AI and decades of experience in automating the most complex workflows across the enterprise really make ServiceNow the AI agent control tower for business transformation, which falls right dead centre in the middle of our overarching strategy.

“We’re really excited about this strength building on strength that ServiceNow and Moveworks has. It's a better together story that we're really excited about.”

What does Moveworks bring to ServiceNow that ServiceNow did not have before?

“It's really about that front end AI agent assistant for employees and that beautiful front-end experience that goes across the enterprise for all employees, whether they're a requester or a fulfiller.

“Moveworks really has the ability to create that connected employee experience.

“Think of a ChatGPT-like interface connecting all parts of the enterprise and all employees to answer any question about anything, and then when connected with ServiceNow having the ability to get it done right.

“Moveworks has an elegant front-end employee experience, plus really great enterprise search capabilities which are already used by millions of employees, and ServiceNow has the powerful automated fulfiller side, the actions, the workflows to get things done.

“Together, the technologies can really deliver a new way of getting work done by giving employees that great, beautiful front-end with the powerful automation engine of ServiceNow.”

“One of the key stats that that I love about Moveworks is that 90 per cent of their customers have deployed their technology to 100 per cent of their employees.

“Wall-to-wall deployments in 90 per cent of their customer base, which really proves how great that experience is.

“They've actually grown to over five million employee users in just over a year, so it’s a really compelling value from a customer perspective.

“And then you put that together with the extraordinary backend that ServiceNow has, and I think it's a really unique one-stop shop for agentic AI across the enterprise.”

A lot of the focus around this acquisition is on agentic AI, a term that ServiceNow has used a lot recently. Define agentic AI, since this is really a new term for a lot of people.

“It’s thinking about how AI can actually solve and resolve issues.

“Think about human agents, like customer service or IT agents, solving problems, resolving issues as quickly as possible.

“AI with incredible reasoning can help do the exact same thing.

“The other question I get is, how is ServiceNow differentiated, because everyone's talking about agentic AI.

“These agents are able to interpret and act on intent, and are able to help drive the incredible productivity that people are waiting for AI to drive.

“ServiceNow is differentiated because you have that ability to have these AI agents work seamlessly across the enterprise.

“ServiceNow is one platform, one data model, one architecture, so the AI agents can work across the platform, whether they're solving an issue for IT, for finance, for customer service, for HR.

“This provides ability for those agents to not need to ‘swivel chair,’ just like human agents.

“AI agents should be able to seamlessly work across the enterprise, because most questions and issues that need resolution, at least the complex ones, need more than one system to help answer them.

“The ability for our AI agents to really work seamlessly across the enterprise and across our product portfolio really is a differentiator for us, and when you add Moveworks’ beautiful front-end and incredible search capabilities, it gives those AI agents even more power.”

The majority of ServiceNow’s business comes through its indirect channel partners. How about for Moveworks? Does that company have a channel focus?

“ServiceNow partners are front and centre in driving AI, but they’re not a big part of Moveworks’ business today.

“Bringing Moveworks into our ecosystem is certainly an accelerant for AI in our customer base, and it's certainly an accelerant for the partner ecosystem.

“As we grow and innovate, our partners have even more opportunities.

“It's all about this technology, plus talent, accelerating our roadmap, accelerating the capabilities for our AI technology that really will help drive incredible customer value.

“And because partners are so integrated in that value chain with our customers, it's an even greater opportunity for them as well.”

The acquisition is slated to close in the second half of the year. Integration can’t officially start until then. But how long would it take to integrate Moveworks into ServiceNow?

“It's absolutely expected to close in the second half.

“There's a lot of work that we can do to prepare for integration between now and then, which we will absolutely be doing.

“And then expectations are that integration will not be that long.

“The folks at Moveworks are super excited from a management perspective.

“The founders will report right into Amit Zavery, our chief product officer, the Moveworks CEO will continue to lead that team under Amit, the back-office staff will be integrated fairly quickly as you would imagine.

“On day one of the close we’ll have 500 AI experts in the company that we did not have before.

“We’re really excited about what that talent can bring to our roadmap in the years ahead.”

This article originally appeared on CRN UK sister website CRN.