In this episode, Product Manager Sibo Ding tells us how natural language understanding (NLU) capability improves performance and user experience for Virtual Agent, AI Search, and other ServiceNow user interface features. This episode covers:
What is NLU?
How does ServiceNow use NLU?
How does ServiceNow NLU work?
How does a company add NLU to its ServiceNow products?
What’s in store for ServiceNow NLU in the future?

For more information, see:
Product documentation: Natural Language Understanding
ServiceNow Community: Virtual Agent & NLU

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In this episode, Product Manager <a href="https://www.servicenow.com/community/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/301755">Sibo Ding</a> tells us how natural language understanding (NLU) capability improves performance and user experience for Virtual Agent, AI Search, and other ServiceNow user interface features. This episode covers:
<ul>
<li>What is NLU?</li>
<li>How does ServiceNow use NLU?</li>
<li>How does ServiceNow NLU work?</li>
<li>How does a company add NLU to its ServiceNow products?</li>
<li>What’s in store for ServiceNow NLU in the future?</li>
</ul>
For more information, see:
<ul>
<li>Product documentation: <a href="https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/utah-intelligent-experiences/page/administer/natural-language-understanding/concept/natural-language-understanding.html">Natural Language Understanding</a></li>
<li>ServiceNow Community: <a href="https://www.servicenow.com/community/virtual-agent-nlu/ct-p/virtual-agent-natural-language">Virtual Agent &amp; NLU</a></li>
</ul>
Your feedback helps us serve you better – please leave us a comment.
Subscribe today!
<ul>
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ServiceNow Insights is your insider’s guide to the world of ServiceNow. Join us as we unpack the latest products, innovations, and updates with in-depth discussions led by the creators behind the platform. Hear firsthand about the challenges they've overcome, the solutions they've pioneered, and the exciting future they envision. Whether you're a seasoned admin, agent, platform owner, or just discovering the power of ServiceNow,  and offers valuable insights to help you stay informed and leverage the full potential of the platform.

ServiceNow Insights&nbsp;is your insider&rsquo;s guide to the world of ServiceNow. Join us as we unpack the latest products, innovations, and updates with in-depth discussions led by the creators behind the platform. Hear firsthand about the challenges they've overcome, the solutions they've pioneered, and the exciting future they envision. Whether you're a seasoned admin, agent, platform owner, or just discovering the power of ServiceNow,&nbsp;&nbsp;and offers valuable insights to help you stay informed and leverage the full potential of the platform.

ServiceNow TechBytes is a Podcast Program hosted …

ServiceNow Insights 

ServiceNow Podcast Program is a collection of podcast shows hosted by various ServiceNow experts and professionals covering different focus areas and a broad variety of topics. Come listen to our experts talk about what's going on at ServiceNow. Join the conversation!

Visit the Now Community forums

ServiceNow Podcast Program is a collection of podcast shows hosted by various ServiceNow experts and professionals covering different focus areas and a broad variety of topics. Come listen to our experts talk about what's going on at ServiceNow. Join the conversation!
<a href="https://community.servicenow.com/community">Visit the Now Community forums</a>

ServiceNow Podcasts

ServiceNow Insights Podcast

Episode 66: Natural language understanding

Engineering teams are building ten times — even a hundred times — more than they could two years ago. That's a win, but one not without challenges. Because the cost of building the right thing has climbed exponentially. In this episode of the ServiceNow Insights podcast, host Bobby Brill sits down with three leaders who are living this tension from three distinct angles: the content and design leader who first spotted the productivity math problem, the design VP pushing for discernment over speed, and the research lead keeping the human at the center.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
IN THIS EPISODE 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 
DAVID HOARE — Group VP, Digital Content & Design, ServiceNow 
ANAND THARANATHAN — Group VP, Product Research & Insights, ServiceNow 
DANTLEY DAVIS — SVP of Design, ServiceNow ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 
CHAPTERS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 
0:00 Introduction & Guest Intros 
1:13 David: The AI Philosophy — ChatGPT as genuine inflection point 
3:02 David: Economic viability — why AI unlocks what was never possible before 
3:12 Anand: Three-person startups scaling to $100M+ 
3:45 Dantley: From 3D Studio Max to Jarvis — AI as human superpower 
6:29 Anand: The customer north star hasn't changed 
7:10 David: Engineering's survival problem — the 100x production gap 
8:32 David: Andrew Ng's PM-to-engineer ratio + the cost of building wrong 
9:40 Dantley: Nine concepts in an hour — design velocity and discernment 
12:04 Dantley: The hip-hop tastemaker — slowing down as part of the process 
14:20 David: Content governance — the fox guarding the hen house 
16:21 Anand: Trust and the human-AI system 
17:20 Dantley: AI surprise — UI tech stacks, feature completeness & hidden tech debt 
20:21 18-Month Close — Anand, Dantley & David ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 
KEY TAKEAWAYS 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 
• Engineering is the first function to see massive AI productivity gains — but that creates a gap every other function has to survive 
• The cost of building has dropped. The cost of building the wrong thing has climbed exponentially 
• Discernment is the bottleneck — not speed. Nine concepts in an hour still needs a tastemaker 
• AI quality is only as good as the content signals it receives — governance is not optional 
• The customer north star hasn't changed. AI just changes how fast you can move toward it 
• Customer value is the only metric that matters. Everything else is the path to it ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 
ABOUT THIS PODCAST 
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 
Subscribe for new episodes on AI, product, engineering, and the future of work. 

 #ServiceNow #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ProductDesign #SoftwareEngineering #ContentGovernance #DesignLeadership #AIStrategy #ProductManagement #EngineeringLeadership #TechLeadership #FutureOfWork #ServiceNowInsights #MachineLearning #Innovation #DesignThinking #TechPodcast #AIProductivity #DigitalTransformation #CustomerValue

Engineering teams are building ten times &mdash; even a hundred times &mdash; more than they could two years ago. That's a win, but one not without challenges. Because the cost of building the right thing has climbed exponentially. In this episode of the ServiceNow Insights podcast, host Bobby Brill sits down with three leaders who are living this tension from three distinct angles: the content and design leader who first spotted the productivity math problem, the design VP pushing for discernment over speed, and the research lead keeping the human at the center.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ IN THIS EPISODE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DAVID HOARE &mdash; Group VP, Digital Content &amp; Design, ServiceNow ANAND THARANATHAN &mdash; Group VP, Product Research &amp; Insights, ServiceNow DANTLEY DAVIS &mdash; SVP of Design, ServiceNow ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 Introduction &amp; Guest Intros 1:13 David: The AI Philosophy &mdash; ChatGPT as genuine inflection point 3:02 David: Economic viability &mdash; why AI unlocks what was never possible before 3:12 Anand: Three-person startups scaling to $100M+ 3:45 Dantley: From 3D Studio Max to Jarvis &mdash; AI as human superpower 6:29 Anand: The customer north star hasn't changed 7:10 David: Engineering's survival problem &mdash; the 100x production gap 8:32 David: Andrew Ng's PM-to-engineer ratio + the cost of building wrong 9:40 Dantley: Nine concepts in an hour &mdash; design velocity and discernment 12:04 Dantley: The hip-hop tastemaker &mdash; slowing down as part of the process 14:20 David: Content governance &mdash; the fox guarding the hen house 16:21 Anand: Trust and the human-AI system 17:20 Dantley: AI surprise &mdash; UI tech stacks, feature completeness &amp; hidden tech debt 20:21 18-Month Close &mdash; Anand, Dantley &amp; David ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ KEY TAKEAWAYS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ &bull; Engineering is the first function to see massive AI productivity gains &mdash; but that creates a gap every other function has to survive &bull; The cost of building has dropped. The cost of building the wrong thing has climbed exponentially &bull; Discernment is the bottleneck &mdash; not speed. Nine concepts in an hour still needs a tastemaker &bull; AI quality is only as good as the content signals it receives &mdash; governance is not optional &bull; The customer north star hasn't changed. AI just changes how fast you can move toward it &bull; Customer value is the only metric that matters. Everything else is the path to it ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT THIS PODCAST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Subscribe for new episodes on AI, product, engineering, and the future of work.&nbsp; &nbsp;#ServiceNow #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ProductDesign #SoftwareEngineering #ContentGovernance #DesignLeadership #AIStrategy #ProductManagement #EngineeringLeadership #TechLeadership #FutureOfWork #ServiceNowInsights #MachineLearning #Innovation #DesignThinking #TechPodcast #AIProductivity #DigitalTransformation #CustomerValue

Engineering teams are building ten times — even a hundred times — more than they could two years ago. That's a win, but one not without challenges. Because the cost of building the right thing has climbed exponentially. In this episode of the ServiceNow Insights podcast, host Bobby Brill sits down with three leaders who are living this tension from three distinct angles: the content and design leader who first spotted the productivity math problem, the design VP pushing for discernment over speed, and the research lead keeping the human at the center.

The Cost of Building the Right Thing | AI, Speed & Discernment at ServiceNow

What does it actually mean to be AI native? Not the buzzword — the real thing. Host Bobby Brill brings together seven ServiceNow experts across six conversations for a complete picture of what AI native thinking, building, and working looks like right now.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT WE COVER
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

DI LE — AI Ethicist & Human-Centered AI Strategist, ServiceNow
The clearest definitions you'll find anywhere of responsible AI, ethical AI, and human-centered AI — and why all three are required if you're going to do this right. Plus: why AI native means AI as the operating system, not a feature.

DR. ALAINA BEAVER — Global Head of Accessibility Customer Engagement, ServiceNow
ServiceNow built the world's first AI model accessibility checker with the Global Accessibility Awareness Day Foundation — and open-sourced it on GitHub for free. Because responsible AI native behavior means holding AI itself accountable.

ANAND THARANATHAN — Research Leader, ServiceNow
A framework from cognitive science every AI builder needs: use, disuse, misuse, and abuse. The four modes of AI interaction — and why proper use is the only one that delivers.

TARA BOGAVELLI & KATRINA STANKIEWICZ — Voice AI Research Team, ServiceNow
How ServiceNow built a rigorous open-source evaluation framework for voice agents from scratch — and what cascade failures, transcription errors, and prosody failures actually sound like in practice.

IAN THURLOW & ANDREW YAN — Software Engineering Manager & Software Engineer, ServiceNow
The daily ground-floor reality of being AI native: AI as accelerator, AI as the new Stack Overflow, the calculator analogy, and why fundamentals matter more than ever.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
LEARN MORE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ServiceNow Responsible AI: https://www.servicenow.com/responsible-ai
AI Model Accessibility Checker: https://www.servicenow.com/accessibility-statement.html
ServiceNow AI: https://www.servicenow.com/artificial-intelligence

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ABOUT THIS PODCAST
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Hosted by Bobby Brill. A ServiceNow podcast exploring the people, technology, and ideas shaping the future of work.

#AINative #ServiceNow #ResponsibleAI #HumanCenteredAI #AIEthics #EnterpriseAI #FutureOfWork #NowAssist #ArtificialIntelligence #Podcast

What does it actually mean to be AI native? Not the buzzword &mdash; the real thing. Host Bobby Brill brings together seven ServiceNow experts across six conversations for a complete picture of what AI native thinking, building, and working looks like right now. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT WE COVER ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DI LE &mdash; AI Ethicist &amp; Human-Centered AI Strategist, ServiceNow The clearest definitions you'll find anywhere of responsible AI, ethical AI, and human-centered AI &mdash; and why all three are required if you're going to do this right. Plus: why AI native means AI as the operating system, not a feature. DR. ALAINA BEAVER &mdash; Global Head of Accessibility Customer Engagement, ServiceNow ServiceNow built the world's first AI model accessibility checker with the Global Accessibility Awareness Day Foundation &mdash; and open-sourced it on GitHub for free. Because responsible AI native behavior means holding AI itself accountable. ANAND THARANATHAN &mdash; Research Leader, ServiceNow A framework from cognitive science every AI builder needs: use, disuse, misuse, and abuse. The four modes of AI interaction &mdash; and why proper use is the only one that delivers. TARA BOGAVELLI &amp; KATRINA STANKIEWICZ &mdash; Voice AI Research Team, ServiceNow How ServiceNow built a rigorous open-source evaluation framework for voice agents from scratch &mdash; and what cascade failures, transcription errors, and prosody failures actually sound like in practice. IAN THURLOW &amp; ANDREW YAN &mdash; Software Engineering Manager &amp; Software Engineer, ServiceNow The daily ground-floor reality of being AI native: AI as accelerator, AI as the new Stack Overflow, the calculator analogy, and why fundamentals matter more than ever. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LEARN MORE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ServiceNow Responsible AI: https://www.servicenow.com/responsible-ai AI Model Accessibility Checker: https://www.servicenow.com/accessibility-statement.html ServiceNow AI: https://www.servicenow.com/artificial-intelligence ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ABOUT THIS PODCAST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Hosted by Bobby Brill. A ServiceNow podcast exploring the people, technology, and ideas shaping the future of work. #AINative #ServiceNow #ResponsibleAI #HumanCenteredAI #AIEthics #EnterpriseAI #FutureOfWork #NowAssist #ArtificialIntelligence #Podcast

Being AI Native at ServiceNow

Day One Ready: What New Engineers Actually Need to Know About AI | Engineering Now Unlocked 

Starting your first engineering role — or coming back for a return offer — and wondering what AI actually changes about the job? This episode gives you the real answer, from two engineers living it every day.

Jordan Shelton and Cynthia Mathenge sit down with Ian Thurlow (Senior Manager, Data Platform Software Engineering) and Andrew Yan (Software Engineer, Data Foundations) to talk about what day one looks like now, what AI tools actually do for early-career engineers, and what fundamentals still separate good engineers from great ones. If you’re about to start an internship, just got your return offer, or you’re a manager thinking about how to set new engineers up for success — this is the conversation you need before day one.

What you’ll learn
✔ What AI actually changes about day-to-day engineering work (and what it doesn’t) 
✔ Why the fundamentals matter more than ever — not less 
✔ How to build a network at a company like ServiceNow, even if you start remotely 
✔ How to use AI as a sounding board, not a crutch 

Chapters 
00:00 Introduction — Engineering Now Unlocked 
02:08 Meet Ian Thurlow and Andrew Yan 
03:03 How AI is changing day-to-day engineering work 
04:47 AI as an accelerator, not a replacement 
09:04 AI as a sounding board 
12:38 Leadership mindset in an AI-first team 
13:46 Raising the bar for early-in-career talent 1
5:41 What your first 30 days should look like 
17:43 This or That 
19:16 Code reviews: the fastest way to learn that nobody talks about 
20:57 Building your network — even fully remote 
24:24 Ian and Andrew’s Work Advice 
27:43 Outro 

Guests 
Ian Thurlow Senior Manager, Data Platform Software Engineering — ServiceNow 
Andrew Yan Software Engineer, Data Foundations — ServiceNow 

Hosts 
Jorden Shelton Technical Program Manager, AI Engineering & Delivery — ServiceNow 
Cynthia Mathenge Business Operations Manager, AI Engineering & Delivery — ServiceNow 
Bobby Brill ServiceNow Insights 

Links & Resources Learn more about ServiceNow Engineering → https://www.servicenow.com/company/careers/engineering.html

ServiceNow Docs → https://docs.servicenow.com

New to the channel? Subscribe so you never miss an episode of ServiceNow Insights.

Day One Ready: What New Engineers Actually Need to Know About AI | Engineering Now Unlocked 
Starting your first engineering role &mdash; or coming back for a return offer &mdash; and wondering what AI actually changes about the job?&nbsp;This episode gives you the real answer, from two engineers living it every day.
Jordan Shelton and Cynthia Mathenge sit down with Ian Thurlow (Senior Manager, Data Platform Software Engineering) and Andrew Yan (Software Engineer, Data Foundations) to talk about what day one looks like now, what AI tools actually do for early-career engineers, and what fundamentals still separate good engineers from great ones. If you&rsquo;re about to start an internship, just got your return offer, or you&rsquo;re a manager thinking about how to set new engineers up for success &mdash; this is the conversation you need before day one.
What you&rsquo;ll learn ✔ What AI actually changes about day-to-day engineering work (and what it doesn&rsquo;t) ✔ Why the fundamentals matter more than ever &mdash; not less ✔ How to build a network at a company like ServiceNow, even if you start remotely ✔ How to use AI as a sounding board, not a crutch Chapters 00:00 Introduction &mdash; Engineering Now Unlocked 02:08 Meet Ian Thurlow and Andrew Yan 03:03 How AI is changing day-to-day engineering work 04:47 AI as an accelerator, not a replacement 09:04 AI as a sounding board&nbsp; 12:38 Leadership mindset in an AI-first team 13:46 Raising the bar for early-in-career talent 1 5:41 What your first 30 days should look like 17:43 This or That 19:16 Code reviews: the fastest way to learn that nobody talks about 20:57 Building your network &mdash; even fully remote 24:24 Ian and Andrew&rsquo;s Work Advice 27:43 Outro Guests Ian Thurlow Senior Manager, Data Platform Software Engineering &mdash; ServiceNow Andrew Yan Software Engineer, Data Foundations &mdash; ServiceNow Hosts Jorden Shelton Technical Program Manager, AI Engineering &amp; Delivery &mdash; ServiceNow Cynthia Mathenge Business Operations Manager, AI Engineering &amp; Delivery &mdash; ServiceNow Bobby Brill ServiceNow Insights Links &amp; Resources Learn more about ServiceNow Engineering &rarr; <a href="https://www.servicenow.com/company/careers/engineering.html">https://www.servicenow.com/company/careers/engineering.html</a> ServiceNow Docs &rarr; <a href="https://docs.servicenow.com">https://docs.servicenow.com</a> New to the channel? Subscribe so you never miss an episode of ServiceNow Insights.

Episode 66: Natural language understanding

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