Choosing the right AI for your ServiceNow strategy
Written by Andy Lockard
March 05, 2025
5 minute read
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionising how businesses operate, and presents ServiceNow customers with a huge opportunity to drive efficiency and value. One key decision that ServiceNow customers face is whether to rely on ServiceNow’s dedicated NowLLM or utilise a general-purpose large language model (LLM) like OpenAI’s GPT-4 or Google’s Gemini. This decision will impact user experience, accuracy, integration, security, and the cost to deploy and maintain.
In this article, we’ll explore the key differences between these two approaches, highlight use cases where each excels, and provide guidance on how to choose the best option for your ServiceNow strategy.
Understanding NowLLM and general-purpose LLMs
What is NowLLM?
NowLLM is a specialised AI model designed to enhance ServiceNow’s platform. Unlike general-purpose LLMs, NowLLM focuses on ServiceNow’s workflows including IT Service Management (ITSM), HR services, and customer support. It’s trained on data relevant to these contexts, making it a highly focused subject matter expert. This specialisation allows NowLLM to provide highly accurate and context-aware responses tailored to ServiceNow’s ecosystem.
What is a general-purpose LLM?
General-purpose LLMs, like OpenAI’s GPT-4 or Google’s Gemini, are trained on massive datasets spanning multiple industries and topics. They’re designed to handle a wide variety of requests but are not specialised in any one domain. While these models offer versatility and creativity, they may struggle to provide precise, context-specific responses for tasks that require deep knowledge of a specific platform like ServiceNow.
Comparing NowLLM and general-purpose LLMs
Accuracy and Contextual Relevance
General-Purpose LLM: General-purpose models are trained on a broad range of topics, which can sometimes dilute their focus when dealing with specialised contexts like ServiceNow’s workflows. This broader training can result in irrelevant responses or a lack of precision.
NowLLM: NowLLM’s training is tailored to ServiceNow’s data structures and workflows. For instance, when summarising a customer service incident, NowLLM can identify key data points and prioritise essential details, providing a clear and concise summary. General-purpose LLMs might not have the same insight into ServiceNow’s specific data structures, leading to less accurate or incomplete summaries.
Advantage: NowLLM
Integration and Customisation
General-Purpose LLM: While it is possible to integrate general-purpose LLMs into ServiceNow, in practice this often requires custom development, API connections, and ongoing maintenance. This approach is more complex, time-consuming, and costly compared to the pre-integrated approach of NowLLM.
NowLLM: NowLLM’s tight integration with ServiceNow’s workflows, ITSM, and HR services means it works out-of-the-box with minimal configuration. Additionally, customers can use ServiceNow’s Now Assist Skill Kit to build custom AI-driven workflows.
Advantage: NowLLM
Security and Data Privacy
General-Purpose LLM: Public LLMs require data to be sent to third-party servers, raising concerns about data privacy and confidentiality. Organisations using public general-purpose LLMs must evaluate whether sensitive data is at risk of exposure or worth the significantly increased cost of running a private general-purpose LLM.
NowLLM: ServiceNow prioritises security and transparency. Customers have control over whether their data is used for model training, and in Stanford University's Foundation Model Transparency Index ranks first in transparency, scoring 100% across most transparency dimensions and outperforming major providers like Google, OpenAI, and Meta.
Advantage: NowLLM
Flexibility and Innovation
General-Purpose LLM: General-purpose models are more versatile and can handle multiple use cases beyond the ServiceNow platform, such as content creation, customer sentiment analysis, or support for non-ServiceNow workflows.
NowLLM: Since NowLLM is optimised for ServiceNow’s ecosystem, it’s less effective for use cases outside this context. For instance, it’s not suitable for tasks like analysing social media sentiment. However, the Now Assist Skill Kit does empower rapid customer innovation within these constraints.
Advantage: General-purpose LLM
Cost and Maintenance
General-Purpose LLM: Integrating general-purpose LLMs with ServiceNow will always require a significant level of custom development, even though ServiceNow simplifies this with the ability to call an external LLM via its generative controller. This process can be more complex, time-consuming, less reliable and costly.
NowLLM: Updates and maintenance of NowLLM are included in the ServiceNow software license agreement. ServiceNow continuously improves NowLLM’s capabilities via updates from platform upgrades and frequent releases to the ServiceNow Store.
Advantage: NowLLM
Example uses: When to choose NowLLM vs. general-purpose LLMs
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