Virtual Agent release notes
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Summary of Virtual Agent Release Notes - Yokohama Release
The ServiceNow® Virtual Agent application offers a conversational interface that helps users quickly access information and perform common work tasks through automated conversations. The Yokohama release introduces significant enhancements and new features aimed at improving user experience, administration, and integration with AI technologies, including large language models (LLMs).
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Key Features
- Assistant Designer: A centralized interface for creating and managing LLM-based chat and voice assistants, integrating Assistants, Asset Library (formerly Virtual Agent Designer), and Analytics into one experience.
- Virtual Agent Designer Enhancements:
- Start creation flows for all supported conversational assets directly within the Designer.
- Integration of the Now Assist Panel as the default platform assistant.
- New toggles like "Show links for each record" to control table bot responses with clickable records.
- Options to shorten bot text responses, adding a 'Show more' feature for user convenience.
- Improved UI elements including updated chat input bars, new conversation icons, and refined topic property tabs for easier management and publishing workflows.
- AI Agent and AI Connector Utility:
- Support for AI agents and agentic workflows viewable and selectable within Virtual Agent Designer.
- Ability to link custom skills to generative AI for richer LLM conversations.
- Dynamic control over AI-driven messaging with settings like dynamicsteploaderenabled.
- Conversational Platform Enhancements:
- Streaming support for response messages in Slack and Microsoft Teams to enhance real-time interaction quality.
- Enhanced voice-based chat experience in Conversational IVR with Now Assist (note: support for Now Assist in Conversational IVR was later removed).
- Pre-chat and post-chat survey support extended to Anthropic Claude on AWS and Google Gemini LLMs.
- Localization and Browser Support: Virtual Agent integrates with the ServiceNow Localization Framework and supports major browsers such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge.
- Application Scope and Management: Ability to select and view application scopes for Virtual Agent topics and manage unpublished changes with improved recovery options.
Activation and Integration
Virtual Agent is an AI Platform feature requiring activation of the Glide Virtual Agent plugin (com.glide.cs.chatbot), which is subscription-based. The plugin installs additional applications like Topic Recommendations and Conversational Analytics, which require separate updates via the ServiceNow Store.
For IT Service Management (ITSM) customers, Virtual Agent Lite is available without activation and supports ITSM-specific conversations.
Related Features and Applications
- Now Assist: Uses generative AI to improve productivity via conversational and proactive experiences.
- Conversational Interfaces Console: Allows installation, management, and monitoring of virtual and live agents.
- Prebuilt Topics and NLU Models: Provided by various ServiceNow business applications (e.g., Customer Service Management, HR Service Delivery) to facilitate rapid deployment of conversational capabilities.
- Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Integration: Virtual Agent leverages NLU models created with the NLU Workbench to interpret user intents and entities effectively during conversations.
Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers
- Design and administer sophisticated chat and voice assistants in a unified environment with Assistant Designer, improving management efficiency.
- Leverage AI agents and generative AI to enrich conversational capabilities, enabling more natural and effective user interactions.
- Enhance multi-channel user experiences with streaming responses in Slack and Microsoft Teams, and improved voice interaction support.
- Utilize new UI and workflow improvements to streamline topic creation, testing, and publishing, reducing administrative overhead.
- Integrate Virtual Agent seamlessly with existing ServiceNow applications and AI services, accelerating deployment and value realization.
The ServiceNow® Virtual Agent application provides user assistance through a conversational interface so that you can design and build automated conversations that help users to quickly obtain information and to perform common work tasks. Virtual Agent was enhanced and updated in the Yokohama release.
Virtual Agent highlights for the Yokohama release
Yokohama Patch 7
- Create and manage LLM-based chat and voice assistants within Assistant Designer, a centralized assistant administrator experience.
Yokohama Patch 6
- Start the create flow for all supported conversational assets directly from Virtual Agent Designer.
- Enhance the user experience with Slack response message streaming capability.
Yokohama Patch 3
- View people information in the synthesized response along with people citation when you search a person in Microsoft Teams chat.
- AI agent support for Virtual Agent.
- View AI agents and agentic workflows in Virtual Agent Designer.
- Select AI agents to handle tasks in the AI Connector utility. See AI Connector utility, Managing AI agents in Assistant Designer, and Using AI agents in Virtual Agent topics for more information.
Yokohama Patch 1
- Enhance the user experience with Microsoft Teams response message streaming capability.
Yokohama Early Availability
- Enhance the overall voice-based chat experience in Conversational IVR with Now Assist.
- Generate synthesized responses in Slack conversations with Now Assist.
- Generate synthesized responses in Microsoft Teams conversations with Now Assist.
- View custom skills in Virtual Agent Designer.
See Virtual Agent for more information.
New in the Yokohama release
- Yokohama Patch 7
- Assistant Designer
- Create and manage LLM-based chat and voice assistants within Assistant Designer, a centralized assistant administrator experience. Assistant Designer is comprised of three main areas: Assistants, Asset library (previously Virtual Agent Designer), and Analytics.
- Conversational settings for Assets in the Asset libraryConversational settings
- Manage the settings for an asset directly from the Asset library page.
- Yokohama Patch 6
- Create a Virtual Agent topic
- Start the create flow for all supported conversational LLM assets directly from Virtual Agent Designer.
- Assistants in Virtual Agent Designer
- The Now Assist Panel - Platform (default) assistant is now available in Virtual Agent Designer.
- AI Connector utility
- Select AI agents to handle tasks in the AI Connector utility. For more information on AI agents in Virtual Agent Designer, see Managing AI agents in Assistant Designer and Using AI agents in Virtual Agent topics.
- Virtual Agent Designer Table bot response control
- Slide the new Show links for each record toggle switch to activate links for each record in the output in your Virtual Agent conversation.
- Virtual Agent server
-
- In chatHandshake, set dynamic_step_loader_enabled to true to send stacked Agentic AI messages to server. Set dynamic_step_loader_enabled to false to avoid sending messages.
- Pre-chat and post-chat surveys are now available for Anthropic Claude on AWS and Google Gemini LLMs. For more information on surveys, see Chat surveys.
- Yokohama Patch 3
- AI Connector Utility
- Link custom skills to generative AI to add their functionality to LLM conversations.
- AI agents and agentic workflows in Virtual Agent Designer
- View AI agents and agentic workflows created in AI Agent Studio in Virtual Agent Designer.
- Shorten responses option for bot text response
- For bot text responses, use the Shorten responses toggle in Virtual Agent Designer to turn on the Show more option in the chat on the user side.
- Yokohama Patch 1
- Application scope for topics
- Select the application scope for topics in Virtual Agent Designer.
- Yokohama Early Availability
- Synthesized response in Slack conversations
- Generate synthesized responses in Slack conversations with Now Assist.
- Virtual Agent feature support in Microsoft Teams conversations
- Generate synthesized responses in Microsoft Teams conversations with Now Assist.
- Custom skills in Virtual Agent Designer
- View skills created in Now Assist Skill Kit in Virtual Agent Designer.
- Chat surveys
- Create chat surveys compatible with LLM-enabled user inputs, aside from the Carousel user input.
UI changes
- Yokohama Patch 6
- Changes to Virtual Agent Designer list view
-
- Tabs have replaced pills in the Virtual Agent Designer list view.
- Hover over the tooltip icon (
) to see information about the assistant you have selected from the drop-down menu.
- Use the new AI agents and Agentic workflows tabs to select from the types of topics on the home page, along with Topics, Subflows, Actions, and Custom skills.
- When a promoted asset has a conditional property that determines the context in which appears for an assistant, it's marked as Condition applied under Show more.
- Yokohama Patch 1
- UI chat updates
-
- The New messages below button in Virtual Agent was replaced with a simplified down-arrow indicator.
- The New messages above button was deprecated because Virtual Agent now auto-scrolls to the top of the oldest new message.
- Input text bar was updated to a more modern look and feel.
- The start a new conversation icon was updated.
- Topic Properties tab
-
- Create a topic form: Read improved topic description field helper text and tooltip.
- Change the application scope for Virtual Agent Designer topics: View the current scope setting on the Virtual Agent Designer topic properties tab.
- Topic Flow tab
-
- View an updated Unpublished changes message on the header bar.
- Hover over the Unpublished changes message to get info on which changes are not yet published.
- Recover unsaved changes using the Recover changes button that appears on the header bar if you close a topic without saving.
- Both message and button appear on the header bar if you add a node to the canvas before closing without saving.
- Testing LLM topics
- View a Matching badge next to the skill activated during testing.
- Custom skills in Virtual Agent Designer
- Use an updated Virtual Agent Designer list-based home page that includes custom skills.
Changed in this release
- Yokohama Patch 6
- Test assistant options
- The Test button in the Virtual Agent Designer canvas directly opens up the chat widget.
- Dynamic Translation calls
- For Now Assist, if native translation is enabled, a Dynamic Translation call is only made if an unsupported language for native translation is used.
- Table bot response control
- Use the new Show links for each record toggle switch to activate links for each record in the output in your Virtual Agent conversation.
Deprecations
Support for Now Assist in Conversational IVR was removed.
Activation information
Virtual Agent is a ServiceNow AI Platform feature that is available with activation of the Glide Virtual Agent plugin (com.glide.cs.chatbot), which requires a separate subscription. For details, see Activate Virtual Agent.
Note:
The Glide Virtual Agent plugin initially installs the Topic Recommendations and Conversational Analytics applications. Subsequent updates to these apps must be installed from the ServiceNow Store.
ServiceNow® Virtual Agent Lite is a subset of the Virtual Agent platform that is available to ServiceNow® IT Service Management (ITSM) customers. It doesn't require activation and works with ITSM Virtual Agent Lite conversations, which are also available to ITSM customers.
Browser requirements
Virtual Agent supports various browsers, including Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. For more information, see Browser support.
Localization information
The ServiceNow® Localization Framework is integrated in Virtual Agent.