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An AI agent is only as good as the information it has. To ensure optimal performance, ServiceNow has developed what it calls the Context Engine, an enterprise-grade tool that pairs AI agents with an organization’s institutional knowledge, relationships, and decision history.
It’s the centerpiece of a broader set of announcements the company is making on Thursday, including native AI across its entire product suite, new Build Agent skills for developers, and a new tiered pricing model.
A Single Source of Context Truth
Drawing on 85 billion workflows and seven trillion transactions processed through its platform, ServiceNow says Context Engine has a depth of enterprise insight most competitors would struggle to replicate. It’s the institutional memory that an AI agent needs to act—it dictates direction and ensures it’s properly governed. For example, the system is aware of which asset is associated with a regulated process, which approval chain has a given cost threshold, and the vendor history impacting how requests are handled.
Similar to Salesforce’s Data 360, ServiceNow’s Context Engine aims to provide AI agents with a unified view of enterprise data, rather than forcing organizations to stitch together context from disconnected systems. Without it, the burden falls on humans to manually identify and connect the relevant data sources—a process that’s slow, incomplete, and difficult to scale.
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ServiceNow is Now AI Native
The push for centralized context is core to the broader shift ServiceNow is making today. The company has declared the end of the so-called “sidecar AI era,” meaning AI will no longer be an add-on feature but will be a default part of every app it sells.
“Most organizations spend months assembling the pieces for enterprise AI,” Amit Zavery, ServiceNow’s president, chief product and operating officer, says in a statement. “By the time they’re ready, the goalposts have moved. ServiceNow brings it all together, so every customer starts with a complete AI-first experience, not a procurement project.”
It’s a trend sweeping enterprise software—Salesforce has made a similar pivot, both enhancing existing apps and launching new ones, including tools for vibe coding, IT service management, and contact centers, all centered on its Agentforce platform. Having AI woven into the underlying logic of how an app works enables workflows, decision points, and automation triggers to operate more effectively without needing to be explicitly invoked. The infusion affects how the software behaves, making it more intelligent rather than just scratching the surface.
“ServiceNow is fundamentally changing how companies realize value from AI, with the capabilities required for enterprise scale,” Zavery states. “From Context Engine’s enterprise intelligence to data connectivity, governance, and execution, everything is included by default, all operating inside the flow of work, and open to the tools developers already use.”
ServiceNow will likely use its Knowledge conference next month to showcase these updates in greater detail.
Greater Developer Flexibility
And speaking of preferred tooling, developers can build apps and agentic skills for the ServiceNow platform using whatever tool they want. It’s a departure from before, when builders needed to use ServiceNow’s own tools and interfaces. Now, the platform’s SDK and Build Agent skills support any development environment, whether that’s Anthropic’s Claude Code, Cursor, OpenAI’s Codex, Windsurf, or Antigravity.
Those building on top of pre-existing ServiceNow apps shouldn’t feel left out. The company notes that ServiceNow Studio now includes Build Agent support, providing an AI-native development experience. That means it understands live data models, active scopes, table relationships, and business rules in real-time. In addition, it can recognize the right fields, dependencies, and extensions.
New Pricing Tiers
Finally, ServiceNow is overhauling its pricing model with a new tiered structure spanning AI assistance, agentic automation, and fully autonomous operations. The company says AI, data, security, and governance are now included across all tiers—no separate purchase required.
Here are the outlined three tiers:
- Foundation: Delivers out-of-the-box AI skills and routine agents built to help teams work faster. Moveworks, which ServiceNow acquired in December, plays a central part here.
- Advanced: Customers can use agentic workflows that do more than assist—they work alongside humans to complete tasks. This plan also offers Process Mining to identify where automation can have the greatest impact.
- Prime: This level is intended for companies seeking a fully autonomous workforce. It provides agentic specialists that can identify issues and resolve them proactively, without requiring tickets, and within corporate governance. In addition, they can build net-new custom skills and agents from scratch.
Despite all these details, ServiceNow has not disclosed the specific pricing for each tier, though it reveals that it’s “deliberately set lower than what customers would have paid purchasing those components individually.”
All of these announcements are generally available today except Context Engine, which remains in limited preview. ServiceNow has not said when it will reach full availability.
Featured Image: ServiceNow signage at Knowledge 2025. Credit: Ken Yeung
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