Virtual Agent and NLU Workbench integration

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated April 16, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Virtual Agent and NLU Workbench Integration

    This integration enables ServiceNow Virtual Agent administrators to create, manage, and update Natural Language Understanding (NLU) models directly within the Virtual Agent Designer interface. It streamlines the process of associating NLU models and intents with conversation topics, enhancing the Virtual Agent's ability to understand and respond to user input effectively.

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    Integration Setup and Configuration

    • Administrators must first create NLU models and associated intents in the NLU Workbench using the admin or nluadmin roles.
    • In Virtual Agent General Settings, enable NLU and select the appropriate NLU service provider. For language-specific models, enable corresponding languages.
    • Within Virtual Agent Designer, apply NLU models to conversation topics by selecting the NLU model, intent, and topic switching behavior under Topic Properties.
    • Configure input controls to extract entities using NLU properties.
    • Optionally, activate Dialog Acts (currently English only) to allow the Virtual Agent to respond flexibly to user modifications mid-conversation, using response types like Modify, Affirm, and Negate.

    Managing NLU Models within Virtual Agent Designer

    • Administrators with virtualagentadmin or admin roles can update intent utterances, train, test, and publish NLU models directly from the Virtual Agent Designer UI.
    • Published NLU models become available for selection and mapping to conversation topics, enabling seamless integration.

    Publishing Topics with NLU Intents

    • When publishing a topic, the system maps and publishes the selected NLU model and intent to that topic.
    • Publishing will fail if:
      • The NLU model is untrained or training is in progress.
      • The last trained model is already published with a Virtual Agent topic.
      • The intent is not enabled in the model.

    Additional Notes

    • Customers using Now Assist in Virtual Agent can continue using existing NLU topics and migrate them to new Large Language Model (LLM) topics using the topic migration feature in Virtual Agent Designer.

    Virtual Agent administrators can access and update their NLU models from within the Virtual Agent Designer user interface.

    Note:
    If you have Now Assist in Virtual Agent, you can continue to use your existing NLU topics and migrate them into new LLM topics using the topic migration feature within Virtual Agent Designer. For more information on topic migration, see Migrate NLU topics to LLM topics.

    Integration setup tasks, roles, and details

    As Virtual Agent administrators create and configure their conversation topics, they must first create their NLU model and its associated intents in the NLU Workbench. This action requires they use the NLU Workbench and the admin or nlu_admin role.

    In addition, they must also complete the following tasks in Virtual Agent General Settings.
    • Enable NLU.
    • Select the NLU service provider.
    • If using language-specific NLU models, enable the languages for those models.
    Virtual Agent administrators must also apply their NLU model to a conversation topic by completing the following tasks in Virtual Agent Designer:
    • In Topic Properties, select the NLU model, the NLU intent, and the topic switching behavior.
    • For input controls used in the topic flow, set the NLU properties for entity extraction.

    Optionally, admins can activate Dialog Acts to enable Virtual Agent to respond flexibly when users make a modification in mid-conversation. Currently available response types are Modify, Affirm, and Negate, based on the last 5 exchanges in the conversation. Dialog Acts can be configured for English only, in Topic Properties. For more information see Dialog Acts for Virtual Agent.

    After the NLU model is complete and associated with a Virtual Agent conversation topic, administrators with the virtual_agent_admin or admin role can do the following from within the Virtual Agent Designer user interface.
    • Update NLU intent utterances.
    • Train, test, and publish the NLU model.

    For more information, see Natural Language Understanding (NLU) topic discovery in Virtual Agent.

    Publishing topics from Virtual Agent

    When your model is published in the NLU Workbench, it's ready to use in Virtual Agent Designer. When editing a topic, click the Properties tab to select a model and intent to map to that topic.

    Natural Language Understanding section of the Properties tab of Virtual Agent Designer.

    When you click Publish, the model and intent are mapped to that topic and published seamlessly.

    Publishing a topic with a mapped intent fails for the following reasons:
    • Model isn't trained, or training is in progress.
    • The last trained model is already published with a VA topic.
    • The intent is not enabled in the model.