ServiceNow pushes auditable AI workflows

ServiceNow is selling companies on a simple pitch: let artificial intelligence run more work, but make every step visible and auditable. (investor.servicenow.com) The company reported $3.671 billion in first-quarter 2026 subscription revenue on April 22, up 22% from a year earlier, and raised its full-year subscription revenue outlook to $15.735 billion to $15.775 billion. (investor.servicenow.com) On the earnings call that day, executives said customers were buying into a platform with “thousands of system connections,” a “live knowledge graph,” and end-to-end audit trails for decisions made by AI. (fool.com) A knowledge graph is a map of how a company’s people, systems, records, and policies connect. ServiceNow says its version pulls together structured and unstructured data from ServiceNow records, knowledge bases, and external sources to improve AI agents and generative AI tools. (servicenow.com) The other piece is governance: a way to see what an AI system is doing, what data it touched, and whether it followed policy. ServiceNow’s AI Control Tower is marketed as a central hub to monitor AI assets, enforce compliance, and keep governance “audit-ready” across internally built and third-party systems. (servicenow.com) That message is landing as big companies move from chatbot pilots to AI agents that can take actions across finance, information technology, customer service, and security systems. ServiceNow said 17 of its top 20 deals in the quarter included seven or more products, a sign that customers are buying broader workflow stacks rather than single tools. (fool.com) ServiceNow also used April 22 to deepen its Google Cloud partnership at Google Cloud Next in Las Vegas. The companies said AI agents on Google Gemini Enterprise and the ServiceNow AI Platform will be able to work across 5G, retail, and information-technology operations under shared governance. (newsroom.servicenow.com) The technical plumbing matters because most companies do not run on one cloud or one model. ServiceNow and Google Cloud said their setup uses Agent-to-Agent, Agent-to-User-Interface, and Model Context Protocol standards so agents can exchange context and actions across systems in real time. (newsroom.servicenow.com) ServiceNow tied that architecture to concrete growth signals. It ended the quarter with $27.7 billion in remaining performance obligations, 630 customers with more than $5 million in annual contract value, and year-over-year growth of more than 130% in Now Assist customers spending over $1 million annually. (investor.servicenow.com) The company also pointed to federal momentum as part of the quarter’s mix, alongside large enterprise deals and broader adoption of its artificial-intelligence products. For ServiceNow, the bet is that companies will buy more autonomous software only if they can see how it works, where it connects, and who can prove what happened after the fact. (fool.com)