Virtual Agent release notes

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 27, 2026
  • 4 minutes to read
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    Summary of Virtual Agent release notes

    The ServiceNow® Virtual Agent application offers conversational user assistance to help users quickly access information and perform common tasks. The Australia release introduces enhancements focused on improving the chat experience, personalization, and deployment flexibility, including the introduction of a premium chat experience that adapts contextually across the platform.

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    Key Features

    • Premium Chat Experience: Available for eligible instances, premium chat provides contextual conversations that adjust based on user location and activity within ServiceNow. It can be deployed across portals, channels (including Microsoft Teams), mobile apps, and ServiceNow Studio.
    • Chat Assistant Display Options: Administrators can assign search sources to chat assistants and control their visibility on various interfaces such as portals, channels, and mobile apps, with readiness checks to confirm eligibility for premium chat.
    • Branding and Personalization: Assistants can be customized for tone, response length, and persona using the assistant personalization settings. This feature is controlled via the snnowassistva.assistantpersonalization system property and is hidden by default.
    • Voice Input Support: Voice input is enabled for premium chat in Now Assist in Virtual Agent assistants, and for all chat tiers (standard, enhanced, premium) in the Now Assist Panel - Platform assistant.
    • Assistant Chat Experience Management: For premium chat, fallback topics and greeting messages (default, static, or custom) can be configured. Legacy messages are automatically migrated to premium messages and fallbacks.
    • Asset Management: Assistants can have unlimited assigned assets, which can be promoted or demoted. Inactive assets are excluded from discoverable and visible lists.
    • Testing Tools: Virtual Agent includes a Test Assistant feature to simulate conversations across chat tiers before production deployment, accessible via the Assistant Designer.
    • ServiceNow AI Platform Licensing Tiers: The platform offers three AI licensing tiers—Foundation (basic insights), Advanced (productivity enhancements), and Prime (autonomous AI with custom asset creation)—with feature access based on entitlements.
    • Default Employee Slate Assistant: Included with the Employee Slate app, this assistant supports premium chat and can be activated, deactivated, edited, and tested but not deleted. It includes configurable branding and channel integration.

    Key Outcomes

    • ServiceNow customers can deploy a more adaptive, context-aware conversational assistant across multiple platforms and channels, improving user engagement and self-service efficiency.
    • Personalization and branding options enable organizations to align the assistant’s tone and persona with their corporate identity and user expectations.
    • Voice input enhances accessibility and convenience for end-users interacting with Virtual Agent assistants.
    • Comprehensive management of chat experiences, including fallback and greeting configurations, ensures smooth and consistent user interactions.
    • Testing capabilities reduce deployment risks by allowing thorough validation of assistant behavior prior to production use.
    • Licensing tiers provide scalability and flexibility, allowing customers to select AI capabilities that match their operational needs and strategic goals.

    The ServiceNow® Virtual Agent application provides user assistance through a conversational interface to help users to quickly obtain information and to perform common work tasks. Virtual Agent was enhanced and updated in the Australia release.

    New in the Australia release

    Australia Patch 3
    Assign search sources to a chat assistant
    For premium chat, catalog items have improved fluidity; however, some of them are no longer conversational. They’ll open in a catalog form instead. This applies to Now Assist in Virtual Agent assistants and Now Assist panel – Platform assistant.
    Display your chat assistant on a portal, channel, or mobile app
    • If your instance is eligible, you can opt into the premium chat experience. ServiceNow performs a set of readiness checks to see if your instance is eligible for premium chat. Premium chat is a contextual chat experience that appears throughout the platform, adapting its behavior and interface based on where users are and what they're doing.
    • An alert is shown when the instance is eligible for premium chat or when there is a possible delay for premium chat to appear as an option on your instance.
    • When editing the display experience of an existing portal or mobile widget, chat experience options depend on the existing configuration.
    • For channels, select channels from the Add channels drop-down list that integrate with the assistant.
    • For Microsoft Teams, edit the channel to toggle between standard and premium chat.
    Display your assistant on Platform or ServiceNow Studio
    An alert is shown when the instance is eligible for premium chat or when there is a possible delay for premium chat to appear as an option on your instance.
    Brand and personalize an assistant
    Customize an assistant’s tone, response length, and persona in the Personalization section when branding your assistant. By default, personalization is hidden.
    To enable personalization, set the appropriate values in the sn_nowassist_va.assistant_personalization system property. For more information, see Now Assist in Virtual Agent system properties.
    Enable additional chat features
    For Now Assist in Virtual Agent assistants, voice input is available for premium chat.
    For Now Assist panel – Platform assistant, voice input is available for standard, enhanced, and premium chat.
    Manage an assistant chat experience
    For premium chat, you can select a topic for fallback options.
    For premium messages, select the default greeting message, static greeting message, or select a custom topic. The static greeting message allows you to customize message.
    For premium chat, your premium messages and premium fallbacks are pre-filled with your legacy messages and legacy fallbacks.
    Edit a chat assistant
    View All assets to see the assets that are assigned to an assistant.
    There is no limit to the number of assets that can be promoted.
    If an active asset is promoted, and later is set to inactive, the asset is not shown in the Discoverable, Visible, and Promoted lists.
    Now Assist in Virtual Agent system properties
    Use the sn_nowassist_va.assistant_personalization system property to show or hide chat personalization when branding an assistant. Personalization determines the tone of the assistant, response length, and persona.
    Now Assist deployment configuration properties
    Manage the behavior of suggestions that users see when typing in the input box.
    Australia Patch 2
    View assistants
    If you have the com.snc.ex_ai_portal (Employee Slate) app installed, the default Employee Slate assistant is shown, and Employee Slate is mapped to it by default. The default Employee Slate assistant can be activated, deactivated, edited, and tested. It can’t be deleted.
    Display your chat assistant on a portal, channel, or mobile app
    The default Employee Slate assistant comes with premium chat. Premium chat is a contextual chat experience that appears throughout the platform, adapting its behavior and interface based on where users are and what they’re doing.
    Brand and personalize an assistant
    For the default Employee Slate assistant, configure premium chat branding. Select and configure the chat header, chat logo, and chat menu items such as a phone number, email, and link.
    A Channels section is shown for Now Assist in Virtual Agent assistants and the default Employee Slate assistant if a channel is configured in the display experience.
    Manage an assistant chat experience
    Depending on your configuration, different greeting, closing, and fallback options may appear. Legacy messages (chat messages) and legacy fallbacks (chat fallbacks) are shown when at least one display experience has standard chat or enhanced chat. Premium messages and premium fallbacks are shown when at least one display experience has premium chat.
    Test a chat assistant
    Test your chat assistant (standard, enhanced, or premium chat) to simulate an end-to-end conversation before moving your experience into a production environment.
    Assistant Designer Asset library
    Use the Test Assistant button to test your LLM assistant in Standard, Enhanced, and Premium Chat, after adding chat experiences in Assistant Designer's Assistants tab.
    ServiceNow product tiers
    The ServiceNow AI Platform now brings you a new AI experience with three licensing tiers available:
    • Foundation: AI basics to deliver insights
    • Advanced: AI to boost productivity across relevant use cases
    • Prime: Act autonomously with all AI assets and create your own

    Depending on your entitlements, you will have access to certain application features, generative AI skills, agentic workflows, and AI agents.

    Premium chat experience for Now Assist Panel - Platform (default) assistant
    The Now Assist Panel - Platform (default) assistant now has the premium chat experience configured by default.

    Activation information

    Virtual Agent is a ServiceNow AI Platform feature that is active by default.