ServiceNow presented a partnership with Microsoft today. They speak of a collaboration but we see it more as extending Microsoft Teams so that ServiceNow customers can also use Now Assist from within Microsoft Teams. In addition, it is possible to convert data from ServiceNow into a PowerPoint presentation.
Both Microsoft and ServiceNow representatives were present at the presentation. They spoke of a unique collaboration because two Copilots are combined in one solution. Customers can use Microsoft CoPilot within Microsoft Teams and by starting a question with the term “NowAssist,” the ServiceNow assistant is invoked.
From a ServiceNow perspective, this is good because customers can also access Now Assist and data and workflows from ServiceNow within Microsoft Teams. By doing this, ServiceNow is available from the application employees use multiple times a day. Microsoft’s advantage and role in this partnership is a bit unclear. Something we also raised but didn’t get a clear answer to. In our view, ServiceNow used the GraphAPIs from Teams and Sharepoint. However, these are fairly new GraphAPIs that Microsoft is still developing. In our view, that is Microsoft’s role in this “collaboration.” It is to be expected that ServiceNow will try to establish a similar collaboration with Slack and Google Workspace.
Data privacy?
Some further questioning revealed that data privacy and sovereign cloud requirements from European organizations have not yet been fully considered. It is not entirely clear how much control customers have over where data is processed. However, both organizations do state that no data is shared with LLMs. Something fairly standard today.
ServiceNow also integrates with Microsoft 365
There is also an integration from the Now platform towards Microsoft. ServiceNow users can use Now Assist from the Now platform to have data on the screen converted into a PowerPoint presentation, for example. There will also be integrations toward Word and Excel online in the near future, possibly to other Microsoft applications as well. We are curious to know how many organizations would love this. We also hear more and more organizations about reducing the number of individual documents and steering towards working with live portals and channels.
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