ServiceNow pitches ‘major opportunity for partners’ at London AI Summit

Christine Horton attended ServiceNow’s London AI Summit for CRN UK this week to report on her top takeaways on the new launches, the vendor’s strategy on AI governance and what MSPs make of its AI capabilities

ServiceNow used its London AI Summit to suggest its latest AI platform developments is a major opportunity for partners.

At the event, ServiceNow showcased a series of AI capabilities designed to automate enterprise workflows, including Autonomous Workforce, EmployeeWorks and AI Control Tower.

Together, the technologies are intended to help organisations move beyond GenAI pilots and towards operational automation across IT, HR and customer service processes.

But for partners, a bigger message was that deploying and operating those systems will rely on partner expertise.

“Autonomous Workforce and ServiceNow EmployeeWorks represent a major opportunity for our partners because standing up AI specialists, tuning governance policies in AI Control Tower, and connecting workflows across enterprise systems is partner-delivered work,” the company says in comments shared with CRN UK.

Autonomous AI specialists

During the event’s keynote, ServiceNow VP of solution consulting, Max Duval, threw a spotlight on the company’s two most recent launches.

Autonomous Workforce introduces domain-specific AI “specialists” capable of resolving tasks across enterprise systems.

Unlike traditional AI assistants that perform single actions, these are designed to orchestrate end-to-end workflows.

“They self-assign the work, solve the problem end-to-end, and bring your team to focus on the good stuff – innovation and strategy,” Duval told attendees.

They have already been deployed internally at ServiceNow.

According to Duval, around 90 per cent of IT support tickets at ServiceNow are already handled by AI specialists, with the company aiming to achieve zero-touch service desk operations for first-line incidents by 2026.

The same model is now being offered to enterprise customers.

A single AI interface for employees

The second recent launch is EmployeeWorks, a new AI interface designed to act as a unified entry point for employees.

The platform integrates conversational AI capabilities from Moveworks - which ServiceNow acquired in 2025 - with the vendor’s workflow automation platform.

The aim is to enable employees to trigger tasks and business processes through natural language interactions.

“On one side you have Moveworks that knows what employees want. On the other side you have ServiceNow that knows how to get it done,” said Duval.

In practice, that could allow workers to request services, resolve issues or complete admin tasks across multiple enterprise systems without navigating individual applications.

Governance becomes critical

The third pillar of ServiceNow’s AI strategy is AI Control Tower, a governance layer the vendor unveiled last year which is designed to help organisations monitor and manage AI deployments across their technology estates.

As enterprises experiment with multiple AI models and agents, the platform aims to provide central oversight for risk management, compliance and policy enforcement.

Duval said governance will become increasingly important as organisations accelerate AI adoption.

“Speed needs to be handled properly. Without control, speed can become dangerous,” he said.

“But with the right control and governance in place, speed becomes your friend,”

The system enables organisations to track AI models, monitor risks and manage the lifecycle of AI systems from onboarding through to retirement.

Channel services opportunity

For partners, ServiceNow believes these offerings open up significant new services opportunities.

Implementing AI specialists, integrating enterprise data sources and configuring governance frameworks are all areas where organisations will require external support.

Moreover, the vendor suggested partners that currently provide managed services help desks may need to evolve their own offerings as AI capabilities mature.

“Partners who currently offer IT help desk or employee service managed services will need to evolve their offerings,” said ServiceNow, adding that its platform could enable partners to deliver “AI-specialist-powered services at scale”.

One MSP already doing that is Thrive, which is using ServiceNow alongside digital employee experience (DEX) software to identify and resolve issues before users even raise a ticket.

The company’s COO, Scott Steele, tells CRN that MSPs built around traditional IT support models will need to reposition themselves as automation reduces the volume of manual ticket resolution.

“MSPs focused on traditional IT support or employee services will need to rethink their offerings for the AI era,” says Steele.

“As routine break-fix work becomes increasingly automated, the value shifts away from simply resolving tickets and towards a more proactive role built on business process improvement, workflow redesign, governance, adoption, and ongoing optimisation.”

Technology is only one part of the picture

Steele also says customers adopting enterprise AI platforms are looking for partners that can guide them through that transition, rather than simply deploy the technology itself.

“Customers do not just need access to AI tools or platforms,” adds Steele.

“They need partners that can assess where AI and automation will deliver the most value, identify which processes are ready for change and help embed those changes in a way that is secure, measurable, and aligned to business outcomes.”

While platforms such as ServiceNow provide the technical foundation for AI-powered service automation, Steele argues the differentiator for providers will increasingly lie in how they operationalise those capabilities.

“Platforms such as ServiceNow can provide the automation to deliver AI-powered managed services at scale, but the technology itself is only one part of the picture.

“The real differentiator will be a provider’s ability to pair platform expertise with governance, change management and a focus on meeting clients where they are.”

To that end, ServiceNow also said it plans to expand partner training through ServiceNow University, with new learning tracks expected around AI specialist administration, governance configuration and agentic workflow design.