IT Service Management AI agent collection Triage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 5 minutes to read
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    Summary of IT Service Management AI Agent Collection: Triage and Categorize ITSM Incidents Agentic Workflow

    The Triage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow enables the automated categorization of ITSM incidents by assigning categories, subcategories, services, service offerings, and configuration items (CIs). It also links incidents to major incidents and known problems when applicable, streamlining incident management processes for ServiceNow customers.

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    Key Features

    • Autonomous Assignment: Automatically categorizes incidents and assigns related services and CIs based on the incident's short description.
    • Linking Mechanism: Searches for and links related major incidents or known problems, enhancing incident resolution.
    • Customization: Users can duplicate and modify the workflow to suit their specific needs, ensuring tailored incident management.
    • Trigger Settings: The workflow can be triggered automatically under certain conditions (e.g., incident state and priority) or manually when required.
    • AI Agent Roles: Utilizes multiple AI agents to execute tasks sequentially, including categorization, classification, and linking of incidents.

    Key Outcomes

    By implementing this agentic workflow, ServiceNow customers can expect:

    • Increased efficiency in incident management through automation.
    • Improved accuracy in incident categorization and linkage to related issues.
    • Reduced manual effort in managing incidents, allowing teams to focus on higher-priority tasks.
    • Faster resolution times due to better incident categorization and automatic linking to relevant incidents or problems.

    Use the Triage and categorize ITSM incidents AI agent team to assign incident categories and subcategories. Then, assign the service, service offering, and the configuration items (CI), and also link major incidents, and known problems autonomously.

    Triage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow overview

    Using the Triage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow, autonomously assign incident categories by assigning a category and a subcategory to incidents based on the incident short description. After categorizing the incident, assign the service, service offering, and configuration item (CI) related to the incident. Then, automatically link incidents to major incidents or known problems.

    To modify the Triage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow, duplicate it, and adjust the settings according to your requirements.
    Note:
    You must enable the semantic indexing for the Problem table when you duplicate the agentic workflow. For more information, see Semantic Index Field form.
    Important:
    When you modify an agentic workflow, AI agent, or a tool, make sure that you update all instructions accordingly.
    Important:
    To search for related major incidents, you must activate the Incident Management - Major Incident Management plugin (com.snc.incident.mim). For more information, see Activate Incident Management - Major Incident Management.

    Triage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow

    This workflow does the following:
    1. Automatically categorizes the incidents.
    2. Then, assigns the related service, service offering, and configuration item (CI).
    3. Then, searches for related major incidents and if found, links them to the incident.
    4. If no major incidents are found, then it searches for related problems, and if found, links them to the incident.
    To access the agentic workflow:
    1. Navigate to All > AI Agent Studio > Create and manage.
    2. Select Triage and categorize ITSM incidents.
    Important:
    In the Edit trigger form, make sure that the Active button is turned on to enable the AI agent to trigger autonomously. You must enter the sys_id of the user with the itil role when the trigger is activated.

    Setting automatic or manual triggers for the agentic workflow

    Based on the incident assignment, state, and priority, the Triage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow is triggered either automatically or manually.
    Type of trigger Field values
    Automatic
    • State is New
    • Assigned to is empty
    • Priority is 3, 4, or 5
    • State is updated to In progress
    • Assigned to is empty
    • Priority is 3, 4 and 5
    Manual
    • State is In progress
    • Assigned to isn’t empty

    Setting the AI user as the Run as user

    The ITSM Worker AI Agent user record is of identity type AI agent and is available by default. You can create users of this type and assign roles to the users based on your needs.

    Add the AI agent user as the Run as user:
    1. Navigate to the Define key requirements screen.
    2. Go to the Select the entity this agentic workflow will run as section.
    3. In the Run as field, select AI user.
    4. In the AI user field, select the desired AI agent user.

    AI agents used in the Triage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow

    The Triage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow uses a team of AI agents to automatically categorize incidents, then assign the service, service offering, and configuration item (CI) related to the incident and then links associated major incidents or known problems.

    Important:
    In the Define availability screen for the AI agent, make sure that the Status field is enabled to activate the AI agent.
    Table 1. AI agents and their roles listed in the order of execution in the Triage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow
    AI agent AI agent role
    Categorize ITSM incident AI agent Automatically assigns incidents to categories, and subcategories, based on the incident's short description.
    Classify service and CI AI agent Automatically assigns service, service offerings, and configuration items (CI) to the incidents.
    Link major incident or problem AI agent
    Important:
    To search for related major incidents, you must activate the Incident Management - Major Incident Management plugin (com.snc.incident.mim). For more information, see Activate Incident Management - Major Incident Management.
    • If this AI agent identifies a related, most similar major incident, it automatically links it to the current incident and ends the workflow.
    • If the Major incident linker AI agent doesn't find a related major incident, then the Incident problem linker AI agent takes over. If it identifies any ongoing problem that best matches the incident, then it automatically links it to the incident.

    Assigning incident categories

    In the agentic workflow record:
    1. Review the information in the Describe and connect screen and in the Define trigger screen. Make the necessary updates, and then select Save and Continue.
    2. In the Select display screen:
      1. Choose where you want the agentic workflow output to be displayed.
      2. Use the arrow next to the display option to add roles that can access the agentic workflow.
        Note:
        The itil role is added by default.
      3. Select Save and test.

        The agent executes the request for the agentic workflow.

    Example of Triage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow output in the ServiceNow AI Agent StudioTriage and categorize ITSM incidents agentic workflow output.

    In the AI Agent Studio, the human agent gets notified as soon as the category recommendation is generated so that they can follow the on-screen instructions and complete the task. For more information, see Request the generative AI capabilities in ITSM by using the Now Assist panel.

    Automate the categorizing an incident, then automatically link them to major incidents or known problems in the Now Assist panel

    When an incident is updated and the trigger conditions are met, an execution plan is created. The incident fields are updated based the execution by each AI agent.

    As a user, do the following in the Now Assist panel:
    1. Enter a message in the Now Assist panel, such as, "triage incident INC0010010".

      All executions are autonomous and the AI agent does need user inputs in any of the steps during the execution.

    2. The first AI agent, which is the Categorize ITSM incident AI agent does the following:
      1. Updates the following fields in the incident record after the execution:
        • Category
        • Sub-category
      2. Updates any changes in the Work notes field.

        The orchestrator then moves to the next available agent.

    3. The second agent, which is the Classify Service and CI AI agent updates the following fields in the incident record after the execution:
      • Service
      • Service offering
      • Configuration item
      It also updates the Additional comments and Work notes fields.

      Now Assist for ITSM Categorize Incidents Additional Comments

    4. The third agent, which is the Link major incident or problem AI agent updates the parent incident or problem field in the incident's related record. The AI agent updates the changes in the Additional comments field.
    Now Assist ITSM Categorize Incidents Related Records
    The image below shows the following:
    • The Categorize ITSM incident AI agent populates the Category and Subcategory fields.
    • The Classify service and CI AI agent populates the Service, Service offering, and Configuration items fields.
    • The Link major incident or problem AI agent populates the Parent incident or the Problem field.

    Now Assist ITSM categorize incidents workflow fields populated