Analyze alert impact agentic workflow

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 3 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Analyze alert impact agentic workflow

    The Analyze alert impact agentic workflow leverages AI agents to investigate alerts by interacting with observability tools like Dynatrace, Kentik, and New Relic, as well as AIOps AI agents. This workflow helps ServiceNow customers understand alert severity, business and service impact, potential root causes, and ownership details. It supports efficient incident response by providing clear, actionable insights and facilitating stakeholder communication.

    Show full answer Show less

    To customize the workflow, customers can duplicate and modify it within AI Agent Studio, ensuring all related instructions are updated accordingly.

    Key Features

    • AI Agent Integration: Uses multiple AI agents specialized in validating alerts, retrieving observability data, analyzing business and service impact, and identifying root causes.
    • Observability Tool Connectivity: Integrates with Dynatrace, Kentik, and New Relic to pull detailed alert-related insights.
    • Service and User Impact Analysis: Maps application services to business and technical services and summarizes user impact.
    • Ownership Identification: Surfaces relevant services and responsible teams to clarify alert ownership.
    • User Interface Display: Can be activated in the Now Assist panel for easy access and interactive alert analysis.
    • Configurable Workflow: Customers can define key requirements, add triggers, and select UI display options via AI Agent Studio.

    Using the Workflow

    ServiceNow customers can access the workflow in AI Agent Studio under "Create and manage" by selecting "Analyze alert impact." After activating the required AI agents, users configure requirements and enable the Now Assist panel display to interact with the workflow.

    Once activated, the workflow enables users to ask specific questions about alerts (e.g., “What is the impact of Alert0010007?”) and receive comprehensive analyses including severity, impact, root cause theories, and ownership information.

    Important Considerations

    • Activate all AI agents related to the workflow before use to ensure full functionality.
    • Observability AI agents require additional configuration steps for integration.
    • When modifying the workflow or agents, update all instructions to maintain consistency.

    Expected Outcomes

    By using the Analyze alert impact agentic workflow, customers can:

    • Gain rapid understanding of alert severity and impact on services and business.
    • Identify potential root causes leveraging combined AI and observability data.
    • Clarify ownership for faster incident resolution and coordination.
    • Improve communication with stakeholders through actionable insights.
    • Streamline alert investigation processes using an integrated, AI-driven approach.

    Use the Analyze alert impact agentic workflow to investigate an alert and get the context that you need to respond efficiently.

    Analyze alert impact agentic workflow overview

    The Analyze alert impact agentic workflow uses AI agents to interact with observability tools, such as Dynatrace, Kentik, and New Relic. It also includes AIOps AI agents that analyze service, user, and business impact. Together, the agents surface information to help you do the following:

    • Understand the severity and impact of alerts.
    • Find potential root causes using insights, such as recent deployments.
    • Identify ownership by surfacing relevant services and responsible teams.
    • Support stakeholder communication with clear, actionable information.

    Use the information on this page to learn about the agents related to the Analyze alert impact agentic workflow. To modify the Analyze alert impact agentic workflow, duplicate it and adjust the settings.

    Important:
    When you modify an agentic workflow, AI agent, or tool, make sure that you update all instructions accordingly.

    Analyze alert impact agentic workflow

    Investigate an alert and get insights into its severity, business and service impact, ownership, and root causes.

    To access the agentic workflow in AI Agent Studio:

    1. Navigate to All > AI Agent Studio > Create and manage.
    2. Select Analyze alert impact.

    The Analyze alert impact page lets you manage the agentic workflow, including defining key requirements, adding a preferred trigger, and selecting a UI display. Navigate to Select a UI display to turn on the agentic workflow in the Now Assist panel.

    AI agents used in the Analyze alert impact agentic workflow

    The Analyze alert impact agentic workflow uses AIOps and observability AI agents to gather information from alerts and request insights. Only the observability AI agents require additional configuration. For more information, see Configuring AI agents for Now Assist for ITOM.

    Important:
    Before using the Analyze alert impact agentic workflow, activate its AI agents. In AI Agent Studio, find the AI agents in Create and manage, and turn on the AI agents in the Define key requirements screen.
    Table 1. AI agents and their roles
    AI agent AI agent role
    Alert impact verification AI agent Validates the user’s question and extracts a single alert to analyze.
    Alert information retrieval AI agent Gathers key observability details for a specific alert.
    Business and technology management service impact analysis AI agent Analyzes impact by mapping application services to business and technical services using Service Portfolio data.
    Dynatrace analysis AI agent Gathers insights from Dynatrace about possible root causes, impacted entities, and impacted environments.
    Kentik analysis AI agent Gathers insights from Kentik about service network performance, connectivity, DDOS attacks, and anomalies.
    New Relic analysis AI agent Gathers insights from New Relic about alert impact, including service and user impact, root cause theories, and responsible teams.
    Service instance impact analysis AI agent Analyzes how the alert affects the associated service instance.
    User impact analysis AI agent Identifies issues linked to the affected services and presents a summarized overview to the user.

    Generating the alert analysis

    In the agentic workflow record:

    1. Review the information in the Describe key requirements screen and Add a preferred trigger screen, make the necessary updates, and then select Continue.
    2. In the Select a UI display screen:
      1. Turn on the Now Assist panel display.
      2. Select Save and test.
    3. Test the agentic workflow by asking a question, for example, What is the impact of Alert0010007?
    4. Select Start test.

      Example of an Analyze alert impact agentic workflow output in the ServiceNow AI Agent StudioAnalyze alert impact output shows chat responses and visualizes the AI agents involved.

    In the AI Agent Studio, you get notified when the analysis is generated. You can then act on the information or ask more questions about the alert. For more information about using the agentic workflow in the Now Assist panel, see Use the Analyze alert impact agentic workflow.