Boomi aims to ease SAP Datasphere migrations

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...

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Boomi said it has enhanced Boomi for SAP to ease the migration of business data into SAP Datasphere.

The move, outlined at Boomi World, aims to solve a pain point for SAP customers that face the end of support for SAP Business Warehouse at the end of 2027. SAP customers have groused about SAP Datasphere as well as the need to support third party data outside of SAP systems.

For SAP, Datasphere is a critical part of its process and automation plans since it can ride alongside SAP Signavio and LeanIX. SAP is also partnered with UiPath for its automation platform. Celonis is also frequently plugged into SAP systems. There are multiple players that want to be your automation platform.

Boomi's plan is to use Boomi for SAP to accelerate the transition to SAP Datasphere on AWS through its iPaaS and Amazon Redshift. Boomi noted that today "the move to SAP Datasphere requires significant investment and substantial effort from highly-skilled individuals."

Steve Lucas, Boomi CEO, said the company's Enterprise Platform combined with AWS is a more cost effective way to move to SAP Datasphere because customers can avoid SAP Business Warehouse upgrades and staging areas, have more efficient data tiering to SAP Datasphere and Redshift and integrate and prepare data better for AI and analytics.

Arm's data center takeover: A lumpy revolution

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...

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Arm Holdings' chip designs may take over the data center over time as GPUs, cloud custom processors and Nvidia's march to AI factories gains momentum. But the road to licensing and royalty nirvana is going to be lumpy.

And lumpy it is for Arm's fourth quarter results and first quarter outlook. Arm's third quarter ascent caught Wall Street by surprise, but the fourth quarter earnings and first quarter outlook had to deal with much higher expectations.

The chip designer said first quarter non-GAAP earnings will be between 32 cents a share to 36 cents a share on revenue between $875 million to $925 million. Fiscal 2025 revenue will be between $3.8 billion and $4.2 billion with adjusted earnings of $1.45 a share and $1.65 a share. The first quarter outlook was above estimates and the fiscal year guidance was in line. 

Higher expectations go with the territory when shares year to date were up 41% going into an earnings report. Arm peaked at $164 after its third quarter report and will fall under $100 today. In other words, Arm has gone from a poster child of trickle-down generative AI economics to not being able to deliver the growth expected.

As with most things in life, the truth lies in the middle. For Arm, that truth looks promising, but chip designs take time to work through data center buildouts. Also keep in mind that Arm stands to benefit from AI processing at the edge--namely AI PCs and smartphones.

Here's a look at the moving parts of Arm.

Future growth is all about royalty revenue from chips based on Armv9 designs. In the fourth quarter, Arm said Armv9 technology contributed 20% of royalty revenue due to smartphones, servers, IoT and networking devices. That's up from 15% in the third quarter.

Arm CEO Rene Haas said on the company's earnings conference call.

"What we're seeing is the acceleration of v8 to v9, which drives not only better royalties, but we're also seeing more CPUs inside the chip, which compounds that royalty growth really across all end markets. V9 adoption will only continue to increase."

V9 adoption will be faster than previous Arm designs because of the uptake in infrastructure and subsystems.

That uptake of Armv9 takes time and revenue recognition may be lumpy. CFO Jason Child said licensing revenue will be "lumpy" due to timing of revenue recognition. Arm said the first half of fiscal 2025 will be about 40% of licensing revenue for the year. Royalty revenue will continue to grow in the mid-20% range. Child said Arm has a pipeline of new licenses and royalty bearing chips to maintain revenue growth of 20% for fiscal 2026 and 2027.

Nvidia is Arm's BFF. Nvidia's surge is going to bring Arm along for the ride. Haas said:

"With Nvidia's most recent announcement, Grace Blackwell, you are going to see an acceleration of Arm in the data center in these AI applications. One of the benefits that you get in terms of designing a chip such as Grace Blackwell is by integrating the Arm CPU with the Nvidia GPU, you're able to get an interconnect between the CPU and the GPU that allows for a much higher access to memory, which is one of the limiting factors is for training and inference applications."

• Nvidia acquires Run.ai for GPU workload orchestration
• Nvidia Huang lays out big picture: Blackwell GPU platform, NVLink Switch Chip, software, genAI, simulation, ecosystem
• Nvidia today all about bigger GPUs; tomorrow it's software, NIM, AI Enterprise

Don't forget the CPU play. Seventy percent of the world's population is using Arm-based CPUs. Those CPUs will become an AI play as AI workloads are moved to the edge. "Our licensing activity is probably the best proxy for that. The way to think about licensing revenue as it applies to Al is as software is moving faster than hardware, the hardware designs need to be upgraded quickly to make sure they can capture the needs of these new Al workloads," said Haas.

Hyperscalers will pay Arm because they need energy efficiency. Google's Axion processor is custom and based on Arm and will be used for inference and training. AWS' Graviton and Trainium are Arm as is Microsoft's custom processor. And then there's the big fish in Nvidia's Grace Blackwell superchip.

Networking is a market. Arm recently announced Ethos-U85, which adds transformer network support to Arm Ethos products, which aim to bring genAI to embedded devices.

Compute subsystems will bring Arm more growth. Arm said it will see growth from Arm Compute Subsystems (CSS), which integrate various Arm technologies for more off-the-shelf components.

Haas said:

"And our first customer in the Neoverse space doing a design, Microsoft, their Cobalt chip is now ramping. We are oversubscribed on this compute subsystem strategy. We have far more demand for the product than anticipated, and we are anticipating growing that significantly over time."

Boomi melds API management, AI integration via platform updates, two acquisitions

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...

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Boomi outlined a vision that puts integration platform as a service (iPaaS) at the heart of connecting AI agents as well as APIs and announced the acquisitions of APIIDA's federated API management business and API management assets from Cloud Software Group.

Speaking at Boomi World, CEO Steve Lucas said the company is looking to end "operational overhead and API sprawl" with its platform and enable scale for AI use cases.

• iPaaS Primer: How the Integration Platform as a Service is Evolving
• Constellation ShortList™ Integration Platform as a Service (IPaaS)

Lucas said: "Connectivity remains a critical challenge for almost every organization. The chief culprit is digital fragmentation, a byproduct of digital shifts that, paradoxically, lead to digital silos and disjointed technical architectures that leave the average enterprise now juggling over 364 applications and numerous API gateways. AI thrives on reliable, secure, and current data, yet too often, this data is fragmented, difficult to govern, and not securely managed."

Boomi's Enterprise Platform aims to address those issues with new features for API management in AI, out-of-box AI agents as well as automated AI orchestration workflows, and tools to manage data quality, data lineage and metadata management.

Key additions include Boomi's platform include:

• The Boomi AI agent framework, which integrates various agents.
• Boomi Answers, an agent for prescriptive help.
• Boomi DataDetective, an agent for classifying data fields and protecting sensitive data and tracking data movement.
• Boomi DesignGen, an agent for building integrations.
• Boomi Scribe, which automatically documents existing and built-by-AI integrations.
• The ability to add third party agents via APIs as well as Boomi GPT. To that end, Boomi announced a partnership with Vianai Systems, which provides conversational AI tools for finance.
• Boomi DataHub, a data access layer for integration pipelines and master data management.

Constellation Research analyst Doug Henschen is at Boomi World and relayed the following take:

"Boomi shared a very forward-looking vision at BoomiWorld 24 for GenAI agent-assisted integration and automation. The four agents initially released -- Boomi Answers for prescriptive assistance, Boomi DataDetective for automatically classifying data and detecting PII, Boomi DesignGen for autonomously generating integrations, and Boomi Scribe for documenting existing integrations – are right in Boomi’s integration and automation wheelhouse, but company CEO, Steve Lucas, also promised an ambitious variety of agents yet to come to the Boomi Agent Garden. From financial analysis to dashboard building to marketing automation, Lucas wasn’t shy about promising broad-ranging, GenAI-based capabilities yet to come, whether provided by Boomi or by third-party partners."

SAP, IBM Consulting pair up on process transformation, genAI

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...

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IBM and SAP said they will collaborate on generative AI models aimed at industries.

The "Value Generation" partnership will focus on generative AI and industry cloud applications. SAP is trying to migrate its customer base to the cloud and S4/HANA via its RISE with SAP program. IBM's approach to generative AI includes an open ecosystem and models that are focused on industries and specific use cases.

SAP and IBM have been partners for decades and have a bevy of joint customers across industries. This generative AI partnership revolves around IBM Consulting, which is already helping migrate SAP customers.

• IBM Delivers AI How It Is Meant to Be With Watsonx
• Enterprise generative AI use cases, applications about to surge
• BT150 CXO zeitgeist: Data lakehouses, large models vs. small, genAI hype vs. reality

The companies said IBM Consulting and SAP will focus on the following areas revolving around RISE with SAP.

• AI and process improvements. IBM and SAP said the two companies are looking to leverage AI in SAP business problems for industry cloud applications. IBM will extend AI into SAP-driven finance, supply chain and human capital management systems. IBM will also use SAP Signavio for process mining and SAP Business AI to retool processes.
• Industry generative AI use cases. The two companies said they will focus on industrial manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, retail, defense, automotive and utilities. IBM is building models for these industries already and would tie in SAP processes.
• Reference architectures. IBM and SAP said they will provide reference architectures to define data, process, systems, orchestration and automation. IBM said it will leverage SAP BTP, SAP Signavio and LeanIX. IBM Consulting is a big partner of Celonis and UiPath too.
• IBM models available on SAP. IBM said watsonx will be available on SAP's Generative AI Hub so its Granite model family will be available across SAP apps.

ServiceNow to integrate Now Assist with Microsoft Copilot

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...

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ServiceNow and Microsoft are integrating their respective generative AI bots, ServiceNow Now Assist and Microsoft Copilot, respectively.

The news, delivered in ServiceNow's Knowledge 2024, is part of ServiceNow's effort to partner with a wide range of enterprise software players including Microsoft and SAP. ServiceNow and Microsoft said their updated strategic alliance will bring the companies' generative AI assistants into one experience.

According to ServiceNow and Microsoft, the generative AI integration will be available in the Fall.

ServiceNow Knowledge 2024: Model choices, genAI everywhere, automation, process optimization

Here's a look at the details:

• ServiceNow's Now Assist and its workflows will be integrated into Microsoft Copilot to execute productivity tasks from various apps.
• CJ Desai, president and chief operating officer at ServiceNow, noted that large enterprise players will have to collaborate to benefit customers.
• The integration is designed to reduce context switching between apps.
• ServiceNow's assistants will be available within Microsoft 365.
• Copilot will be able to hand off employee requests to Now Assist from within Microsoft Teams.

Going forward, the companies said employees will be able to use Copilot in Microsoft 365 applications from ServiceNow to create documents based on ServiceNow prompts.

Separately, ServiceNow enhanced its Contract Management Pro, Security Operations and Field Service Management applications with AI-enabled collaboration and process tools. The company also announced an integration of IBM's watsonx and Now Assist. 

See more:

• Enterprises Must Now Cultivate a Capable and Diverse AI Model Garden
• Secrets to a Successful AI Strategy
• Return on Transformation Investments (RTI)
• Financial services firms see genAI use cases leading to efficiency boom
• Foundation model debate: Choices, small vs. large, commoditization

Twilio's second quarter revenue outlook light

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...

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Twilio reported better-than-expected first quarter earnings, but its second quarter revenue outlook was light.

The company reported a first quarter net loss of $55 million, or 31 cents a share, on revenue of $1.047 billion, up 4% from a year ago. Adjusted earnings were 80 cents a share, which were 21 cents a share ahead of Wall Street estimates.

As for the outlook, Twilio projected revenue of $1.05 billion to $1.06 billion with non-GAAP earnings of 64 cents a share to 68 cents a share. Wall Street was looking for non-GAAP second quarter earnings of 62 cents a share on revenue of $1.08 billion.

Overall, Twilio growth is anemic, but the company is improving operating efficiency.  Khozema Shipchandler, CEO of Twilio, said "we are operating with greater financial discipline, operational rigor, and focus on innovation than ever before."

Since its last earnings report, Twilio has evaluated its Segment unit and decided to keep it. Twilio said it authorized another $2 billion to repurchase shares on top of the $1 billion it approved in February.

• Twilio: We'll keep Segment with a new leader
• Twilio Q1 outlook light as new CEO takes over
• Twilio names Shipchandler CEO as Co-Founder Lawson steps down

For the full year, Twilio is projecting revenue growth of 5% to 10%.

Here's a look at Twilio's first quarter key facts:

• The company ended the quarter with 5,582 employees.
• It had 313,000 active customer accounts as of March 31, up from 300,000 a year ago.
• Communications revenue was $972 million, up 4% from a year ago, with operating profit of $249 million.
• Segment revenue was $75 million with an operating loss of $21 million.

Shipchandler said on an earnings conference call:

"We made progress on a number of our AI products and are driving better synergies with our Communications and Segment products. In Q1, we announced Agent Copilot, our first of three launches in 2024, where Twilio will natively embed Segment into Twilio's Communications products. With Agent Copilot, we've embedded Unified Profiles powered by Segment within Flex, giving agents deeper insights into their customers' behaviors and preferences. By accessing the real-time data from Unified Profiles, Agent Copilot assists in intelligent routing to agents and provides them with actionable insights for each customer interaction, automating and enhancing agent productivity while reducing resolution times. Agent Copilot and Unified Profiles are currently in public beta."

He added that Twilio has integrated with Databricks and Snowflake so data can flow between Twilio and the data platforms. 

Apple launches M4 ahead of what's likely to be AI-heavy WWDC

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...

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Apple launched new iPads, but its latest M4 processor stole the show. The M4, and a heavy dose of AI talk, represented the latest effort by Apple to show that it won't be a generative AI laggard.

With its latest financial results, Apple CEO Tim Cook went out of his way to talk about AI, how it can fuel another hardware upgrade cycle and reiterate that the company is investing in the space. "We continue to feel very bullish about our opportunity and generative AI we are making significant investments and we're looking forward to sharing some very exciting things with our customers soon," said Cook last week.

Enter the M4 launch (and oh yeah the iPads). The M4 will power the new iPad Pro, use second-generation 3-nanometer technology and is a system on a chip that has up to a 10-core CPU and new 10-core GPU. M4 also has Apple's latest Neural Engine that can handle up to 38 trillion operations. And the kicker is that the M4 "is faster than the neural processing unit of any AI PC today," said Apple, which didn't mention a core count for its neural processing unit.

That AI PC reference has nothing to do with Qualcomm Snapdragon processors powering a wave of AI PCs coming and Microsoft's Surface event on deck I'm sure. 

Apple's M4 launch comes amid a Wall Street Journal report highlighting ACDC, or Apple Chips in Data Center. According to the WSJ, Apple is working on its own AI chips for its data centers. Then again, who isn't working on custom AI chips? Meta, AWS, Google and Microsoft all are building their own AI chips.

You can see where this is headed: WWDC and a lot of AI. Cook can't stop teasing WWDC and what'll be an AI-heavy narrative. He ended the iPad presentation with: "We can't wait to see what users do with these incredible new iPads. And we look forward to seeing you next month at WWDC where we'll talk about the future of our platforms. And share some exciting details about what's to come."

Constellation Research Holger Mueller said Apple can go a few directions with the AI theme. Mueller said Apple's AI theme is likely to feature a heavy dose of walled garden. Apple's AI strategy won't be about generative AI for all because it'll be designed more for the Apple ecosystem.

"At WWDC, Apple needs developers to build apps for the Apple Walled Garden AI (AWGAI)," he quipped.

And those iPads...

Lost in the M4 news was Apple's new iPads, which will go a long way toward revamping the tablet portfolio. The company launched two new iPad Pro models, 13-inch and 11-inch, with the M4 chip, Ultra Retina XDR display and new accessories with a new Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard. Apple claims the iPad Pro is the company’s thinnest product ever. With the launch, Apple appears to be positioning the iPad Pro as an AI PC killer--at least until new MacBooks launch.

The iPad Pro with M4 will feature silver and space black finishes with 256GB, 512GB, 1TB and 2TB configurations. The starting price for the 11-inch iPad Pro is $999 with Wi-Fi. The 13-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,299. An Apple Pencil Pro will run you $129 and the new Magic Keyboard will cost $299 for the 11-inch device and $349 for the 13-inch version.

The iPad Air, which has the M2 chip, comes in 11-inch and 13-inch versions, support for the Apple Pencil Pro. The 11-inch iPad Air starts at $599 and the 13-inch is $799.

RSA Conference 2024 in a nutshell: What you need to know

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...

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Google Cloud launched Threat Intelligence, Cisco and Splunk outlined integrations and new security offerings, Palo Alto Networks outlined its AI and cybersecurity future and CrowdStrike, Fastly and a bevy of others had announcements. Akamai acquired Noname Security.

While Chirag Mehta is at RSA looking at trends and developments and themes for CxOs, I'll round up the news nuggets to know. Here's a look.

• Akamai Technologies said it will acquire Noname Security, an API security vendor, to bolster its existing API Security offering. Akamai said the purchase price was $450 million.
• Google Cloud launched Google Threat Intelligence, which combines Google's security offerings into one package. Google Threat Intelligence includes Mandiant intelligence, VirusTotal and visibility tools built on the company's mobile and email scale. The headliner for Google Threat Intelligence is Gemini in Threat Intelligence, a generative AI agent built on Gemini 1.5 Pro that provides insights. Google Cloud also announced the latest release of Google Security Operations.

• Splunk Asset and Risk Intelligence. Splunk launched Splunk Asset and Risk Intelligence to enable enterprises to be more proactive about security and mitigating risks. The system correlates and aggregates data from various sources to keep a rolling inventory of assets. This inventory can then be used to map assets and relationships to offer context for incident response. Dashboards and metrics are available out of the box to help with compliance.
• Cisco and Splunk integrations. Splunk's announcement landed as Cisco and newly acquired Splunk outlined integration to bridge security platforms. Cisco plans to converge its security portfolio with Splunk. For now, the two companies are rolling out new features and integrations. Cisco said Extended Detection & Response (XDR) is now integrated with Splunk Enterprise Security to provide one detection to remediation workflow. Cisco also said its unified AI Assistant for Security is available in Cisco XDR. The company also said its Panoptica application protection platform includes AI and machine learnings for real-time alerts. Cisco also said Hypershield, launched last month, will get tools to isolate attacks from unknown vulnerabilities within the runtime. See: Splunk’s Acquisition by Cisco Accelerates Convergence of Network, Security, and Observability, Fueled by AI | 11 Top Cybersecurity Trends for 2024 and Beyond

• Palo Alto Networks announced three copilots across its cybersecurity platforms with Strata Copilot, Prism Cloud Copilot and Cortex Copilot. The assistants are powered by Precision AI, which combines generative AI, machine learning and deep learning from the data on Palo Alto Networks platforms. The Palo Alto Networks copilots are now in private preview. Palo Alto Networks is promising a launch that will highlight the intersection of AI and cybersecurity. The company also announced Cortex XSIAM, which will give customers the ability to integrate third-party EDR data and bring their own models to the platform. Cortex XSIAM will get one unified interface, security agents and integration with Prisma Cloud. See: CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks duel over platforms vs. bundles

• CrowdStrike outlined new additions to CrowdStrike Falcon Next-Gen SIEM. All Falcon Insight customers will get 10GB of third-party data ingest per day at no additional cost. In addition, Charlotte AI, CrowdStrike's genAI security analyst, will be available for all Falcon data in Next Gen SIEM. Charlotte AI will also get new promptbooks, the ability to summarize incidents and automated investigations. Falcon Next-Gen SEIM also gets more cloud connectors, data normalization and automated data onboarding. CrowdStrike also expanded its ecosystem. CrowdStrike also announced the general availability of CrowdStrike Falcon Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) as an integrated part of CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security. The effort aims to create a CloudSecOps platform that moves as fast as DevOps that includes business threat context, deep runtime visibility, and protection across multiple assets. CrowdStrike added cross-domain threat hunting tools in Microsoft Azure environments to its Cloud Detection and Response platform.
• Fastly said its Managed Security Service with coverage of Fastly Bot Management will now include a 30-minute time to notify service level agreement. With the SLA, Fastly said it is guaranteeing that its experts will notify and begin mitigating security incidents within 30 minutes of discovery for any web application security incident.
• Ernst & Young outlined some initial findings from its 2024 Human Risk in Cybersecurity Survey. EY said 85% of workers believe AI has made cybersecurity more sophisticated, 78% are concerned about the use of AI in cyber-attacks and 39% of employees aren't confident they know how to use AI responsibly.

ServiceNow Knowledge 2024: Model choices, genAI everywhere, automation, process optimization

Larry Dignan

Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights
Constellation Research

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of Constellation Insights at Constellation Research, where he leads editorial coverage focused on enterprise technology, digital transformation, and emerging trends shaping the future of business. He oversees research-driven news, analysis, interviews, and event coverage designed to help technology buyers and vendors navigate complex markets with clarity and context. ...

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ServiceNow, which launched a bevy of generative AI tools across its Now Platform, is giving customers the ability to bring their own large language models (LLMs) to use in Now Assist. 

With the move, announced at Knowledge 2024, ServiceNow customers will be able to use ServiceNow LLMs, their own models or general purpose LLMs.

ServiceNow's build your own LLM effort comes as model choice becomes a big issue for enterprises. Companies are looking to use open source models and tailoring them with enterprise data or use a service like Amazon Bedrock or Google Cloud Model Garden to mix and match models as needed. Enterprises are also wary of being locked into any one vendor's model.

Bring your own model capabilities play into ServiceNow's strategy to offer multiple models based on use cases. ServiceNow has focused on use case specific LLMs that are accurate and efficient to run. "When the models are smaller, the cost to run them is not high; and number three, from an end user perspective, a smaller model always performs better," said ServiceNow President and Chief Operating Officer CJ Desai.

ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott said on the company's first quarter earnings call that the company has partnered closely with Microsoft, SAP, IBM and a host of others. "We're very open to all the participants that are making LLMs and they can all integrate with ServiceNow and we'll own the domain specific to ServiceNow, but we welcome all participants," said McDermott. "We're not interested in shutting anybody out."

McDermott said during his Knowledge 2024 keynote that AI is critical for CEOs, who need to deliver AI-driven transformation plans. "I've met more than 200 CEOs individually in the last 12 months and they're all in on AI. The board is saying to them 'what is your plan for AI?' CEOs said AI will be highly disruptive to my business and my industry. We have a once in a lifetime shot to be the great simplifier."

• ServiceNow posts strong Q1 touts genAI uptake
• ServiceNow CFO outlines method to Pro Plus SKU pricing
• 77% of CxOs see competitive advantage from AI, says survey | Why digital, business transformation projects need new approaches to returns | Why you'll need a chief AI officer | Enterprise generative AI use cases, applications about to surge

Although bring your own LLM was the headliner at Knowledge 2024, ServiceNow announced a series of generative AI innovations. Here's a look at the roundup, which will be mostly available across the Now Platform May.9.

• ServiceNow expanded the Now Assist portfolio with Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), which uses generative AI to ground planning and prioritize work based on customer feedback. Now Assist for SPM synthesizes customer feedback and requests in one place and enables business users to create demands without long forms.  
• The company added genAI features including playbook and app generation so developers can scale. Now Assist for Creator's playbook generation enables users to define processes for automation and make them repeatable. App generation in Now Assist for Creator creates business applications via natural language.
• Now Assist for Creator also gets service catalog generation so developers can generate a catalog item, descriptions, questions and text prompts quickly.
• ServiceNow admits will get prompt management tools that incorporate business context and company goals.
• ServiceNow launched knowledge article summarization for agents.
• The company's Government Community Cloud will get Now Assist for public sector customer experiences. Government Community Cloud will be available in the second half of 2024 or sooner depending on FedRamp approval.

In addition, the company is expanding generative AI features across its Now Platform. For instance, knowledge article generation will be available in Now Assist for IT Service Management, Now Assist for Customer Service Management, and Now Assist for HR Service Delivery.

Other Now Assist features across products include post call summarization, feedback summaries and simplification of alerts.

Creator Studio, Automation Engine

ServiceNow outlined no-code tools to scale the automation of workflows with availability May 9.

The company launched Creator Studio, which will be available with ServiceNow App Engine, to offer guided experiences to build applications. Business processes owners can create applications with guardrails and governance.

ServiceNow also enhanced Automation Engine, which automates workflows and aggregates technologies such as robotic process automation, API integration, document intelligence and process mining with governance.

Automation Engine will now get Automation Center for tracking of returns and one view of request and tasks as well as automation lifecycle management. Embedded Task Automation will take ServiceNow's existing RPA and provides tools to trigger automations across various workflows.

Manufacturing Commercial Operations

At Knowledge 2024, ServiceNow stepped up its efforts to target the manufacturing industry. The company outlined Manufacturing Commercial Operations (MCO) takes genAI to hone sales, service, support and order-to-cash processes.

Part of MCO is Employee Center (EC) Pro Kiosk, which targets factory workers without phones. EC Pro Kiosk includes self-service company communications, resources and hire-to-retire processes.

With MCO and EC Pro Kiosk, ServiceNow is focusing on workflows and employee experiences and leaving supply chain to other players.

According to ServiceNow, MCO is built on ServiceNow Customer Service Management and Sales and Order Management. Using gen-AI, MCO is focused on sales management, service management, field operations and customer facing workflows.

MCO is an example of how ServiceNow can take various platform offerings and reconfigure them to focus on specific industries.

ServiceNow, Genesys partnership

Genesys and ServiceNow said they will integrate Genesys Cloud with ServiceNow Customer Service Management (CSM). The integration will be called Unified Experience from Genesys and ServiceNow.

Unified Experience from Genesys and ServiceNow will be available later in 2024 and aim to do the following:

• Give agents one workspace in ServiceNow CSM that integrates data and tools for customer experience across digital and voice channels.
• Provide one engine for work routing and experience orchestration via Genesys Cloud. ServiceNow will connect workflow automations across processes.
• Tools to optimize customer journeys.

Both companies will sell Unified Experience from Genesys and ServiceNow and integrated features will be rolled out "under controlled availability."