Use Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement Operations (SPO)

  • Release version: Australia
  • Updated March 12, 2026
  • 2 minutes to read
    • Summarize
    Summarized using AI
    This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete.

    Summary of Use Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement Operations (SPO)

    Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement Operations (SPO) enhances the purchasing experience for requesters and procurement teams by leveraging generative AI within the ServiceNow platform. It enables requesters to easily find products and services in the catalog or submit off-catalog requests through a conversational Virtual Agent interface. The Virtual Agent guides users through intake questions, purchase requests, and procurement cases, reducing the need to contact fulfillers directly.

    Show full answer Show less

    Procurement specialists and buyers benefit from AI-powered tools for summarizing procurement records, generating email responses, and analyzing requester sentiment in procurement cases to improve efficiency and responsiveness.

    Key Features

    • Product and Service Search: The Virtual Agent searches the product catalog and presents available items, allowing requesters to complete intake forms conversationally and submit requests.
    • Off-Catalog Requests: If an item is not found, the chatbot collects additional details, checks for quotes, routes users to off-catalog intake forms, or enables submitting questions to the procurement team (requiring specific user roles).
    • Conversational Interface: Users can start by browsing topics or typing their needs; the AI uses Genius Results to suggest relevant Virtual Agent topics, catalog items, and Q&A in an easy-to-navigate card carousel.
    • Record Summarization: Both shoppers and fulfillers can use generative AI skills to summarize sourcing requests, purchase requisitions, and purchase orders, gaining insights on status, progress, and action items.
    • Generative AI Capabilities: Accessible through the Now Assist panel and Virtual Agent chat, enabling contextual AI-powered interactions and record summarization.
    • Email Response Generation: Helps procurement specialists and buyers quickly draft professional and accurate email replies, reducing manual effort.
    • Sentiment Analysis: Analyzes sentiments in procurement cases to help prioritize and manage sensitive requests effectively.
    • Analytics Dashboard: Admins can monitor self-service deflection rates and performance of Now Assist in Virtual Agent through a dedicated analytics dashboard.

    Key Outcomes

    • Requesters can independently submit and track purchase, sourcing, and off-catalog requests through natural language conversations, improving user experience and reducing manual support.
    • Procurement teams gain AI-driven insights and tools to handle requests more efficiently, prioritize sensitive cases, and communicate effectively with requesters.
    • Administrators have visibility into Now Assist usage and effectiveness, enabling continuous improvement of procurement operations automation.
    • The overall process accelerates sourcing and procurement workflows while enhancing accuracy, responsiveness, and user satisfaction within ServiceNow.

    For your requesters' purchasing needs, the Now Assist for SPO Virtual Agent searches against the existing products in the product catalog and displays the available products.

    Note:
    Depending on your license, you will have access to certain application features, generative AI skills, agentic workflows, and AI agents. For more information, see ServiceNow product tiers.

    If a product is found with or without a price in the catalog, the requester can then fill out the intake questions through a simple conversation, and then submit the purchase request after reviewing the summary of responses. They can also edit a response before submitting.

    If a product or service isn’t found in the catalog, the chatbot gathers more information, such as checking for availability of quotes, and routes the requester to the corresponding off-catalog intake form. It also provides the requester with the option to submit a question to the procurement team about the required product or service, with relevant attachments, if any, all through a conversation.
    Note:
    You can ask a question to the procurement team, and create a corresponding procurement case, only if you have the sn_spend_psd.requestor role. Ensure that you admin has assigned that role to you.

    As a requester, you can start with viewing all the topics, and then selecting Buy a product.

    You could also directly start typing what you need, in which case the utterance detection mechanism uses Genius Results to retrieve Virtual Agent topics, catalog items, and Q&A results, and displays them to the requester within a card carousel. For details, see Using Now Assist in Virtual Agent.

    The Virtual Agent engages you in a guided conversation, asking you relevant questions along the way to help you submit your purchase, sourcing, and off-catalog requests, as well as procurement cases, independently, without the need to reach out to fulfillers. You can then review and track these request records from Shopping Hub, Employee Center, or Platform.

    To learn more about quick checkout and sourcing checkout processes, see Order a product with quick checkout and Complete sourcing checkout respectively. For more information on off-catalog intake forms, see Requesting for products or services that you don't see on ShoppingHub.

    Now Assist in Virtual Agent provides your users with an interactive generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) experience. A friendly, natural language conversation is easier to understand and makes requesters more comfortable with talking to a bot. To learn how a conversation powered by generative AI might look in Virtual Agent, see Using Now Assist in Virtual Agent.

    As an administrator, you can use the Now Assist in Virtual Agent Analytics dashboard to monitor the performance of Now Assist in Virtual Agent as a self-service deflection tool. To learn more, see Using Now Assist Analytics. Now Assist in Virtual Agent Analytics calculates the conversation deflection rate based on the resolution status associated with Now Assist query responses.

    For detailed information on Now Assist in Virtual Agent in general, and Now Assist for SPO in particular, see Explore Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement Operations (SPO).

    For information on configuring Now Assist for SPO, see Configure Now Assist for Sourcing and Procurement Operations (SPO).