AI Search release notes

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated May 28, 2026
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of AI Search release notes

    The ServiceNow® AI Search application delivers a consumer-grade search experience integrated with the ServiceNow AI Platform®. The Australia release enhances AI Search with multimodal captioning, hybrid search capabilities, and improved integration with Now Assist, providing more accurate, contextually relevant, and actionable search results across global and workspace searches.

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    Key Features

    • Multimodal Captioning (Australia Patch 3): Automatically generates searchable descriptive captions for images, tables, charts, and other visual elements within attachments in the Knowledge [kbknowledge] table, enabling keyword searches on these elements.
    • Hybrid Search (Australia Patch 1): Combines keyword-based and semantic understanding search methods to improve precision and contextual relevance, reducing zero-result searches. This is configurable on instances with Now Assist in AI Search installed.
    • Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Results: Supports actionable multi-content AI-generated responses in global and workspace search. When enabled, it supersedes other Genius Result configurations and provides seamless topic continuation through Virtual Agent topic citations.
    • AI Search as Source for Ask Now Assist Suggestions: Administrators can configure AI Search to provide Ask Now Assist suggestions, enabling features like suggestion term highlighting, wildcard searching, and lemmatization for better user interaction in enhanced chat.
    • Search Behavior Insights and UI Enhancements: A refreshed Search Preview UI offers administrators tools to preview and analyze search queries, compare keyword versus hybrid search results, and configure display options such as border visibility between search result cards on portal and global search pages.
    • Granular Search Admin Role: The aisadmin role allows search administrators to manage Search Suggestions tables without granting full admin access, improving security and delegation.
    • New Platform Multimodal Service Plugin: Available from Australia Patch 3, integrates with the multimodal backend to support automatic caption generation for searchable attachment content.

    Practical Impact for ServiceNow Customers

    • Find visual content within attachments easily by searching for keywords describing images, tables, and charts.
    • Receive more accurate and context-aware search results through hybrid search, enhancing user productivity and reducing search frustration.
    • Deliver actionable AI-generated answers directly in search results with Now Assist, streamlining access to relevant knowledge and supporting ongoing conversations.
    • Customize search suggestion sources and improve user experience with enhanced chat integration.
    • Gain operational insights and fine-tune search configurations using the updated Search Preview UI and granular admin roles.
    • Enjoy support for international languages and avoid unsupported browsers like Internet Explorer for optimal AI Search functionality.

    Related Applications and Features

    • Advanced AI Search Management Tools: Provides dashboards and reports for monitoring AI Search usage and configuration.
    • Now Assist in AI Search: Combines search with AI-powered answers using the Now LLM Service.
    • External Content Connectors: Enables AI Search to index and search content from external systems such as Atlassian Confluence Cloud, Jira, Google Drive, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce Slack, and public websites.

    The ServiceNow® AI Search application provides a consumer-grade search experience for ServiceNow AI Platform® users. AI Search was enhanced and updated in the Australia release.

    AI Search highlights for the Australia release

    Australia Patch 3

    Find Knowledge [kb_knowledge] table attachments containing images, tables, charts, and other visual elements by searching for keywords from automatically generated multimodal descriptive captions.

    Australia Patch 1
    • Provide actionable search and chat responses in global and workspace search with support for Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Results.
    • Improve search precision and contextual relevance with hybrid search, available on instances that have Now Assist in AI Search installed.
    • Augment the enhanced chat experience by configuring AI Search as the source for Ask Now Assist suggestions.
    • Gain insights into search behavior with a refreshed and updated Search Preview UI.

    See AI Search for more information.

    New in the Australia release

    Australia Patch 3
    Multimodal captioning for attachments
    Multimodal captioning automatically generates searchable descriptive captions for images, tables, charts, and other visual elements in indexed attachments. Find attachments by searching for keywords from generated captions.
    Australia Patch 1
    Improve search precision and contextual relevance with hybrid search
    Beginning with Now Assist in AI Search 15.0, administrators on instances with Now Assist in AI Search installed can enable the new hybrid search mode. Hybrid search combines keyword-based search with semantic understanding to deliver more accurate and relevant search results, with fewer zero-result searches.
    Configure AI Search as the source for Ask Now Assist suggestions

    Admins can configure the system to use AI Search as the source for Ask Now Assist suggestions in enhanced chat. Making this change activates suggestion term highlighting in Ask Now Assist and provides improvements such as wildcard searching and lemmatization for suggestions.

    UI changes

    By default, AI Search displays no borders between search result cards on the portal search results page. Administrators can enable display of borders between search result cards on the portal search results page by configuring the Faceted Search Service Portal widget.
    By default, AI Search displays no borders between search result cards on the global search results page. Administrators can enable display of borders between search result cards on the global search results page by configuring the search result wrapper component for the Unified Navigation app in UI Builder.

    Changed in this release

    Australia Patch 1
    Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Results
    If you have Now Assist in AI Search installed, Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Results are supported in global and workspace search. Activating Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Results in global or workspace search profiles overrides all other Genius Result configurations, so that global and workspace searches only display Genius Result answers from Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Results. Virtual Agent topic citations from Now Assist Multi-Content Response Genius Result answers in global or workspace search open the selected topic in the Now Assist panel so the user can continue their conversation on that topic.
    Search Suggestions
    Search administrators with the ais_admin granular admin role can access all Search Suggestions tables. Assign search administrators this role to eliminate needless propagation of full admin access.
    Gain insights into search behavior with a refreshed and updated Search Preview UI.
    Preview search query results using settings from a search application configuration or a search profile. Choose between keyword and hybrid search modes. Display search results as individual EVAM cards or as a JSON-format search query response object, with search and syntax highlighting. Review search query behavior and results and specify search query settings with the new Summary, Genius Results, Details, and Profile admin tools.

    Activation information

    AI Search is a ServiceNow AI Platform feature that is active by default.

    Plugin information

    New plugins

    The following plugins are new in Australia:

    Platform Multimodal Service (com.glide.platform_mm_service): Integrates with the multimodal service backend to provide automatic generation of searchable descriptive captions for images, tables, charts, and other visual elements in attachment files indexed for search. This plugin is available beginning with the Australia Patch 3 release.

    Browser requirements

    AI Search doesn’t support Internet Explorer.

    Localization information

    AI Search supports international languages. For details of language support by feature, see Internationalization support for AI Search.

    Related ServiceNow applications and features

    Advanced AI Search Management Tools
    The Advanced AI Search Management Tools application adds new functionality to AI Search. Administrators can review dashboards with metrics, trends, and reports relating to AI Search usage and configuration.
    Now Assist in AI Search
    The Now Assist in AI Search application combines the power of search with the Now LLM Service agentic AI model to answer questions in user searches with actionable AI-generated answers from relevant Knowledge articles.
    External Content Connectors
    The External Content Connectors ServiceNow Store application enables AI Search applications to search content and metadata from supported external source systems, including Atlassian Confluence Cloud, Atlassian Jira, Google Drive, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce Slack, ServiceNow product documentation, and public websites supported by the predefined web sources external content connector.