Using Now Assist in Virtual Agent

  • Release version: Yokohama
  • Updated January 30, 2025
  • 11 minutes to read
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    Summary of Using Now Assist in Virtual Agent

    Now Assist in Virtual Agent enhances the user experience on ServiceNow portals by integrating AI Search with generative AI chat capabilities. This combination helps accelerate issue resolution and reduces the need for live agent intervention. Users can engage with Now Assist through two primary chat experiences: standard chat and enhanced chat, each offering different interaction models and features.

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    Chat Experience Options

    • Standard chat: A conversational support experience within a static chat widget, providing basic chat functionality.
    • Enhanced chat: A richer experience featuring a resizable and movable chat window, support for multiple active conversations, and multiple entry points across the ServiceNow portal. It also offers optional full-page chat experience integration with AI Search, where search bar queries redirect users into a full-page chat interface.

    The enhanced chat experience synchronizes conversation history between the chat window and full-page interface, ensuring fluid dialogue continuity and consistent citation behavior. Citations in synthesized responses can include catalog topics, subflows, actions, knowledge base articles, external content, and people, varying only in formatting between chat types.

    Key Features

    • Resizable and movable chat window: Available only in enhanced chat, allowing users greater flexibility in managing conversations.
    • Multiple active conversations: Users can engage in several chats simultaneously in enhanced chat.
    • Full-page chat experience: When enabled, portal search bar queries lead to a full-page chat tab showing synthesized AI responses and allowing continuous conversation.
    • Feedback icons panel: Present on Virtual Agent responses to collect user feedback (like/dislike) and improve AI model accuracy over time. Includes a "go to search results" icon for fallback scenarios.
    • Now Assist sub-header elements: Includes Chats list (active, updates, closed), chat name display, new chat initiation, support and settings options, and interactive views (e.g., organizational charts).
    • Interactive view: Available for people citations, displaying organizational charts and enabling seamless switching between multiple views.
    • Support and live agent integration: Displays contact information and a live agent chat button if agents are available, limiting users to one live agent chat at a time.

    Differences Between Standard and Enhanced Chat

    Feature Standard chat Enhanced chat
    Portal search bar integration No redirect to chat Yes, search bars redirect to chat capabilities or full-page chat
    Chat window resizable and movable No Yes
    Interactive view No Yes
    Multiple active conversations No Yes
    Conversations remain active after task completion No Yes

    Enhanced Chat Full-Page Experience Specifics

    In the full-page experience, portal search queries redirect users directly to a chat tab where synthesized AI responses appear as part of the conversation, rather than on the search results page. The chat and search tabs operate independently, allowing users to perform searches without interrupting active conversations.

    Search results in the full-page experience resemble those on the portal search page but exclude the “Genius Results” synthesized response. Icons next to search results allow users to initiate catalog requests directly in chat or open content in new tabs.

    Configuration and Prerequisites

    To enable standard or enhanced chat with synthesized AI responses, the following must be configured:

    • ServiceNow default chat widget button must be turned on.
    • Portal’s AI Search must be configured and enabled.
    • ServiceNow default Search page widget must be activated.
    • For full-page experience with enhanced chat, the default Search Typeahead widget must also be enabled.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    • Improves self-service by providing AI-powered conversational support integrated with search results.
    • Reduces live agent workload by deflecting common queries through AI chat.
    • Offers flexible chat engagement options to suit varied user preferences and portal designs.
    • Keeps chat history synchronized across multiple interaction modes, enhancing user experience continuity.
    • Feedback mechanisms help continuously improve AI response quality.
    • Live agent escalation remains seamless within the enhanced chat experience.

    Now Assist in Virtual Agent enhances the user experience by combining AI Search with generative AI chat skills. These skills can speed up issue resolution and reduce deflection to a live agent.

    Standard chat and enhanced chat

    During the Now Assist in Virtual Agent guided setup, you may be presented with two user experiences to select from: standard chat or enhanced chat.

    Standard chat is a conversational support experience within a static chat widget. Enhanced chat is a conversational experience within a resizable and movable chat window that includes the ability to have multiple active conversations. Enhanced chat enables users to choose their way of engaging with Now Assist on their ServiceNow portals from a variety of entry points. When choosing enhanced chat from the guided setup, if you also have AI Search enabled on your portal, you’re presented with the Allow the search bar to open into a full-page chat experience option. If you select this option, your conversational and search experience appears as a full page inside the portal. The conversational fluidity and citation behavior between the enhanced chat and enhanced chat's full-page experience remains the same regardless of which chat experience you choose. You can still access enhanced chat's resizable and moveable chat window when you have full-page experience turned on and are on screens other than the full-page experience itself. Turning on enhanced chat's full-page experience further combines chat and search capabilities by redirecting you into a full-page chat after entering a query into a portal's search bar.

    Note:
    For more information about selecting a chat experience in the admin guided setup, see Display your chat assistant on a portal, channel, or mobile app.

    The following table outlines feature differences between standard and enhanced chat.

    Table 1. Standard and enhanced chat
    Feature Standard chat Enhanced chat
    Portal's search bars redirect to include chat capabilities or directly into chat No Yes
    Chat window resizable and moveable No Yes
    Interactive view No Yes
    Multiple active conversations No Yes
    Conversations remain active after task completion No Yes
    View all topics/Show all options Yes Yes
    The types of citations that appear in synthesized responses are the same between standard and enhanced chat, but their formatting differs. The following citations may appear in your synthesized results:
    • Catalog
    • Topic, subflows, or actions
    • Q&A Knowledge Base articles
    • External content connections
    • People
    For more information on these citations, see their respective sections in Standard chat and Enhanced chat.

    The appearance of the default chat widget button varies depending on whether you have standard or enhanced chat turned on. The default standard chat button displays as a traditional message icon and the default enhanced chat button displays as the universal AI-generated sparkle icon. This button is only accessible through portal pages. While in enhanced chat's full-page experience, you’re unable to access the chat widget button.

    Figure 1. Example of the Now Assist in Virtual Agent standard chat widget button
    Chat bubble button.
    Figure 2. Example of the Now Assist in Virtual Agent enhanced chat widget button
    Sparkle button.

    Enhanced chat's full-page experience

    Where your users learn about search results differs between the enhanced chat and enhanced chat's full-page experience. For enhanced chat, when you enter a search query through your portal's search bar, you’re redirected to the portal's search results page. At the top of the search results page, you see Genius Results in a synthesized response generated by Now Assist. When you're using enhanced chat's full-page experience and you enter a search query through one of the portal's search bars, you’re redirected to the full-page experience's chat tab. Within the chat tab, you may see a synthesized response generated by Now Assist within a conversation depending on your utterance. You continue the conversation within the chat tab.
    Figure 3. Example of the chat tab, labeled Now Assist, in the full-page experience
    A synthesized response appears for an order a laptop prompt in the Now Assist tab.

    The conversational fluidity and citation behavior between the enhanced chat and enhanced chat's full-page experience remains the same regardless of which chat experience you use. The conversations that you have either through the enhanced chat's window or full-page experience remain in synchronization, and the conversational history is retained in both mediums. For example, if you enter Order a loaner laptop the conversational fluidity and citations that appear are the same whether in enhanced chat or enhanced chat's full-page experience. If you begin the laptop catalog request in the full-page experience, you can still view and continue the conversation in the enhanced chat's window because the chat experiences remain in synchronization with one another. For more information about conversational behavior and citations, see Enhanced chat.

    Each Virtual Agent response includes a feedback icons panel. The feedback icons panel appears on the latest Virtual Agent response and whenever you hover over any previous Virtual Agent response. You can indicate if the response was helpful by selecting the like thumbs up icon (Thumbs up icon.). If the response wasn't helpful, select the dislike thumbs down icon (Thumbs down icon.). This feedback is used to train the LLM model and improve responses over time. Depending on the context of the response, an additional go to search results icon (Go to search results icon.) may appear in the feedback icons panel. This icon appears alongside synthesized responses in Virtual Agent, clarifying questions in Virtual Agent, and fallback topics whenever a synthesized response is unavailable but there are regular search results available. When the full-page experience is on and you select the go to search results icon (Go to search results icon.), you’re redirected to the Search tab. After redirecting to the Search tab, a search query using the last five chat utterances you entered begins. Additionally, a copy message icon () appears on received Virtual Agent responses.

    The Now Assist sub-header consists of four elements. The following figure and table shows an example and description of those elements.

    Figure 4. Example of chat controls
    Chat window controls include New Chat, Chats, Support, and Settings.
    Table 2. Now Assist sub-header elements
    Element Description
    1. Chats (Chats icon.)

    All chats appear.

    Chats are organized with the most recent conversations at the top. Selecting a chat opens the chat in the conversation area. If there are unread chats or notifications, a badge number appears on the Chats icon (Chats icon.). Any unread chat or notification appears with a red dot next to it and the chat title appears in bold. Additionally, if you switch to a new chat while another active chat is ongoing, a pop-up message on the Chats icon (Chats icon.) appears: Your previous chat was saved. You can revisit all of your past chats and continue ones that are still active. The following list includes the chat sections that you may see in the chats area.

    • Active: Chats where you can continue the conversation. If applicable, active chats move to the Closed chats section after two hours of inactivity. This 2 hour time limit can be configured within the Messaging Channels {sys_cs_channel.list} table. To change the inactivity time limit, from the Messaging Channels {sys_cs_channel.list} table, select the NASS record and populate the Conversation Idle Timeout field with your preferred active chat time limit. If you have no active chats, No chatter at the moment is displayed. If more than 12 active chats are running, a Show more link appears to view more chats. Selecting Show more displays an additional 10 chats.
    • Updates: Updates for important notifications and reminders can be configured to display. When sn_nowassist_va.nass_notification_enabled is set to true (the default), simple (nonactionable) Virtual Agent notifications appear on your portal home page. After selecting a notification, you’re redirected to this Updates section. If you have no updates, You're all caught up is displayed. If more than four updates are available, a Show more link appears to view more updates. Selecting Show more displays an additional 10 updates.
      Note:
      If sn_nowassist_va.nass_notification_enabled is set to false, the Updates section doesn't appear.
    • Closed: Closed chats can be configured to display. You know that a message has closed when the designated time has passed (2 hours of inactivity) or you receive the following response in the chat: It looks like you're finished with this chat, so I'll go ahead and close it. Turn on closed chats by selecting the Show closed chats check box within Conversational Interfaces > Assistants > [Selected Assistant Name] > Chat experience > Closed chats. After being turned on, closed chats are displayed for as long as they’re available within the Conversations (sys_cs_conversation) table. Closed chats appear in a read-only mode and can’t become active again. If more than four closed chats are available, a Show more link appears to view more closed chats. Selecting Show more displays an additional 10 closed chats. After a conversation has closed, you can’t reopen it. Hovering over a closed chat displays the delete icon (Delete icon). Confirm the chat deletion on the Delete this chat? modal to permanently delete the chat from the interface.
    2. [Chat name]

    The name of the conversation.

    If you select a promoted asset or query, that asset's title appears as the chat name. If instead you enter an utterance into the Reply to Now Assist field, your initial utterance becomes the chat name. The chat name appears in both the Now Assist subheader and Chats list > Active section.
    3. New chat (New chat icon.)

    A new conversation begins.

    You may be prompted with a greeting message along with any promoted conversational assets such as topics, subflows, and/or actions, or suggested queries.
    4. Support and settings (Support and settings icon.)

    Support contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses are listed. If live agents are available, an active Contact Live Agent button is displayed. Although multiple active conversations are possible, you can only have one live agent conversation at a time. Selecting Contact Live Agent begins a chat with a live agent. After a live agent enters the chat, the Contact Live Agent button becomes inactive. If live agents are unavailable, an inactive No live agents currently available button is displayed.

    Settings toggles for Audio notifications and Notifications appear. By default, audio notifications are turned on and notifications are turned off. If admins have enabled notifications within the guided setup, users can turn on the notifications.
    5. Interactive view ( or )
    Note:
    This icon only appears in the sub-header whenever the interactive view is available.

    Open or close the interactive view. The interactive view appears towards the right of the conversational chat area. Interactive view is available whenever an organizational chart is an available option in a people citation popover. If multiple interactive views are available in the same conversation, for example, you opened multiple people's org charts in a conversation, a drop-down is available to switch between the different interactive views' tabs.
    While in the full-page experience, you can select the Search tab. Selecting the Search tab auto-populates the search bar with the first utterance found in the chat tab, but a search query doesn’t begin. The chat and Search tabs are otherwise independent of the other, so running a search doesn’t impact your existing chats nor does starting new chats impact your existing search results. You must enter text into the search bar so that the search bar becomes active and then you can submit your search. The search results that appear in the Search tab resemble the search results found on the portal page, excluding the Genius Results synthesized response. Two icons may appear next to the search results:
    • Request in Chat icon. (Request in Chat)

      The Request in Chat icon. (Request in Chat) icon opens the conversational catalog into a new chat.

    • Open in New Tab icon. (Open in New Tab)

      The Open in New Tab icon. (Open a New Tab) icon redirects you to either complete a catalog form or view content in a new tab.

    Figure 5. Example of Search tab in full-page experience
    Order a laptop search results appear in the Search tab of the full-page experience.

    The following table outlines the preceding feature differences between enhanced chat window and enhanced chat full-page experience.

    Table 3. Requester differences in enhanced chat
    Feature Enhanced chat Enhanced chat full-page experience
    Entry points
    • Entering an utterance into the chat through the chat widget button.
    • The portals search results page's synthesized response via chat icon (Request in Chat icon.) or Request in chat link from popover.
    • Notifications
    • Entering an utterance into the portal's search bar.
    • The go to search results icon (Go to search results icon.) from an enhanced chat's chat window response.
    Portal search bar results Redirects to the portal's search page results. Redirects into the full-page experience's chat tab.

    Prerequisite requirements for standard and enhanced chat

    Both standard and enhanced chat require the ServiceNow default chat widget button to be turned on. The following actions must be completed for enhanced chat to display a synthesized response after entering a search query through the portal:

    The following actions must be completed for enhanced chat to display a synthesized response in the full-page experience after entering a search query through the portal's search bar:

    • Configure the portal's AI Search configured
    • Turn on the ServiceNow default Search page widget.
    • Turn on the ServiceNow default chat widget button.
    • Turn on the ServiceNow default Search Typeahead widget.

    More information

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