Agentic AI security and governance
Summarize
Summary of Agentic AI security and governance
Agentic AI security and governance in Now Assist ensures that AI agents operate securely within defined organizational boundaries. These agents can autonomously invoke tools, access data, and make decisions, which introduces security challenges beyond standard platform hardening. ServiceNow provides layered controls governing who can invoke agents, what data they can access, how their interactions are monitored, and how organizations retain oversight. The security model extends traditional platform controls with AI-specific features like identity classification, role masking, and runtime guardrails through Now Assist Guardian.
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Key Features
- Permissions-based access control: Utilizes Agent Role Inheritance, identity types, and granular roles to ensure AI agents have only the necessary permissions and operate within intended boundaries.
- Data protection: Employs ServiceNow security tools such as the Key Management Framework, Field Encryption, and Data Classification to secure data storage, processing, and isolation, especially when third-party agents are involved.
- Agent traceability and monitoring: Uses AI Control Tower and detailed agent activity logs to track agent actions, accessed data, and maintain auditable, explainable records for security and compliance teams.
- Governance and administrative safeguards: Provides guidance on managing roles, policies, and configurations to reduce risks and meet compliance standards such as HIPAA, GDPR, and NIST.
- AI threat protection: Now Assist Guardian, built on the ServiceNow Small Language Model (SLM), continuously monitors generative AI interactions to detect offensive content, prompt injection attacks, and sensitive topics.
- External AI agent security: Offers visibility and governance over AI agents from external providers, ensuring sensitive data remains properly isolated across the AI ecosystem.
Key Outcomes
By implementing these security and governance controls, ServiceNow customers can confidently deploy AI agents that act autonomously yet securely within their enterprise environment. This framework helps minimize risks associated with AI agent misuse, data breaches, and compliance violations. Customers gain comprehensive oversight and traceability of AI activities, ensuring accountability and alignment with organizational policies. The integration of Now Assist Guardian provides runtime protection against AI-specific threats, enhancing overall security posture during AI adoption and operation.
Now Assist AI agents operate securely within the boundaries you define. Layered controls govern who can invoke each agent, what data it can access, how interactions are monitored, and how your organization retains oversight.
Deploying AI agents introduces security considerations that go beyond standard platform hardening. Agents act autonomously, invoke tools, access data, and make decisions on behalf of users. This requires controls at every layer: who can invoke an agent, what it can access once running, how its actions are logged, and what catches harmful or unintended behavior at runtime.
Now Assist is built on the ServiceNow AI Platform security model. AI agents are subject to the same ACL enforcement, role-based access controls, and domain separation that govern all platform activity. The controls in these sections extend that foundation with capabilities specific to agentic AI. These include identity classification for AI users, role masking to enforce least-privilege during tool execution, and runtime guardrails through Now Assist Guardian. Readiness assessment tools help verify your instance is prepared before agents go to production.