Using Now Assist for CMDB

Release version: Xanadu

Updated September 9, 2025

3 minutes to read

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Summary of Using Now Assist for CMDB

Now Assist for CMDB provides tools for users with the sncmdbuser role to manage configuration items (CIs) effectively. It includes various agentic workflows and AI agents designed to simplify tasks such as creating CIs, ensuring data governance, searching for CIs, and managing duplicates.

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Key Features

Create Configuration Item: This workflow allows users to manually create a CI by using natural language requests. It verifies class assignments, checks for duplicates, and ensures the necessary data attributes are gathered.
Provide Advice on CMDB Governance: This workflow assists data admins in enhancing CMDB data accuracy and health, ensuring users can trust the data for their tasks.
Search CMDB: Users can search for CIs based on various attributes through natural language requests, which will generate appropriate queries, including keyword and multi-table searches.
AI Agents: Various AI agents facilitate tasks such as managing data certification and attestation, overseeing data ownership, and summarizing CI data directly on CI forms or lists.
Running AI Agents Autonomously: Users can configure AI agents to run autonomously by duplicating and activating workflows and agents, as well as setting triggers for automation.
Manage Duplicate CIs: Administrators can resolve deduplication tasks with guided support, allowing for remediation preview before applying changes.

Key Outcomes

By utilizing Now Assist for CMDB, ServiceNow customers can enhance the accuracy and reliability of their CMDB data, streamline CI management tasks, and improve operational efficiency. The combination of agentic workflows and AI technology facilitates better data governance and supports quick, informed decision-making regarding configuration items.

If you have the sn_cmdb_user role, you can access several Now Assist for CMDB skills, agents, and agentic workflows.

Agentic workflows used by Now Assist for CMDB

Create configuration item: Occasionally, you might need to create a CI manually. To help you, the workflow accepts your natural language request and verifies that it understands which class the new CI should belong to. The workflow then checks IRE policies to determine the required attributes for the CI and request that information. After you provide sufficient data, the workflow uses IRE to ensure that the proposed CI is not a duplicate, and then creates the Cl. For more information, see CI creator agentic workflow.
Provide advice on CMDB governance: Data governance can be an overwhelming task. The Provide advice on CMDB governance agentic workflow supports data admins and owners by methodically working through the many-faceted process of improving CMDB data accuracy, completeness, and health. The objective is to ensure that users can trust the data that they use for their work. For more information, see CMDB governance agentic workflow.
Search CMDB: The CMDB search agentic workflow enables you to search for CI data by specifying any of several attributes of the CI of interest. The workflow accepts your natural language request, verifies your search goal, and then generates a keyword search, a single-table search with dot walks, or a multi-table search, depending on the information you provide. The workflow can infer CI relationship data to generate an appropriate query. For more information, see CMDB search agentic workflow.

AI agents used by Now Assist for CMDB

CI creator AI agent: The CI creator AI agent creates a new configuration item (CI) record in the CMDB.
CMDB data certification and attestation manager AI agent: The CMDB data certification and attestation manager AI agent retrieves the data certification and attestation policies for a CI class and for similar classes. It can also create a data certification and an attestation policy.
CMDB data manager AI agent: The CMDB data manager AI agent provides guidance on whether the fundamental data management processes are in place for the CMDB. It also helps admins to establish good CMDB processes.
CMDB data ownership manager AI agent: The CMDB data ownership manager AI agent returns a link for the CI Class Manager (the default value of a CI's Managed by field). For a CI class, it determines ownership, validates ownership, and evaluates ownership quality.
CMDB health metrics manager AI agent: The CMDB health metrics manager AI agent retrieves information on CMDB health jobs, health metrics status, and health scores.
CMDB life cycle manager AI agent: The CMDB life cycle manager AI agent performs actions related to life-cycle management of CI classes: retrieve the life-cycle management policy and retirement definition for a CI class and create a life-cycle policy.
CMDB principal class manager AI agent: The CMDB principal class manager AI agent determines whether the user can mark Cl classes as principal, suggests principal classes, and can mark or unmark a class as principal.
CMDB search AI agent: The CMDB search AI agent searches the CMDB for a particular configuration item (CI) using single table query search or keyword query search and then displays a link to search results.
CI summarizer AI agent: View a concise summary of key configuration item (CI) data directly on a CI form, in the workspace, or from any list. The summary can include discovery and class details, associated business services, security vulnerabilities, and related records like incidents, alerts, problems, and change requests. For more information, see Use the Now Assist CI summarizer AI agent.

Running AI agents autonomously

Important:

By default, all agentic workflow and AI agent records are read only.

To run the AI agents autonomously, you must first duplicate the agentic workflow and then proceed with the following steps:

Activate the agentic workflow.
Activate all agents within the agentic workflow.
Activate the trigger to invoke the agentic workflow automatically. If you prefer to invoke it manually, activating the trigger isn’t necessary.

Now Assist skills used by Now Assist for CMDB

CI summarization: View a concise summary of key configuration item (CI) data directly on a CI form, in the workspace, or from any list. The summary can include discovery and class details, associated business services, security vulnerabilities, and related records like incidents, alerts, problems, and change requests. For more information, see Use the Now Assist CI summarizer AI agent.
Manage duplicate CIs: Resolve deduplication tasks with support from Now Assist. CMDB administrators follow step-by-step guidance to perform remediation, and can preview remediation results before applying a template. For more information, see Use the Now Assist manage duplicate CIs skill.