ServiceNow Now Assist licensing covers how ServiceNow sells the generative AI capabilities of its AI Platform: skills such as incident summarization, AI agents and creator tools. ServiceNow has been renaming these capabilities from Now Assist to ServiceNow Otto. The legal schedule is now listed as the “ServiceNow Otto Overview (formerly Now Assist Overview)”, and many documentation pages use names such as ServiceNow Otto for Creator, while Subscription Management still says Now Assist.[11][8][1] Licensing has three layers. The product tier decides which AI capabilities may be used.[5] An account-level pool of assists measures how much generative AI is consumed.[1] Per-user Creator Plus subscriptions cover AI-assisted development.[3]
Editions
Generative AI is packaged with the workflow product rather than sold as a stand-alone platform add-on. ServiceNow’s product tiers page states that Now Assist skills “are available at every tier, across ITSM, CSM, ServiceNow Otto for HRSD, and industry solutions”.[5] The ITSM package page names a tier-matched allowance for each package: “Now Assist and Platform AI Foundation”, “Now Assist and Platform AI Advanced” and “Now Assist and Platform AI Prime”.[12] The tiers differ in what customers may build:
- Foundation and Advanced. AI skills and routine AI agents, and configuration of out-of-the-box skills and agents.[5]
- Prime. Adds creation of net-new custom AI skills and agents and the autonomous AI workforce (AI Specialists) (Only the Prime tier allows net-new custom AI agents).[5]
Documents written for the earlier packages use “Pro Plus” and “Enterprise Plus” for the generative AI editions. The AI Skill Kit field of use refers to “ITSM Pro/Enterprise Plus” and “HRSD Pro/Enterprise Plus”.[6] ServiceNow Otto for Finance and Procurement “requires the Source-to-Pay Operations Pro Plus SKU” (ServiceNow Otto for Finance and Procurement requires the Source-to-Pay Operations Pro Plus SKU).[7] Entitlement is separate from installation. At least one Now Assist application must be installed from the ServiceNow Store before AI Admin Hub becomes available.[10]
Metrics
| Metric | Entry | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Assists | Assists | Generative AI consumption. Products “that include assists” carry a purchased-assists quantity, and usage is tracked per instance, domain and skill[1] |
| Creator User | Creator User | Per-user entitlement for users with the now.assist.creator role[4] |
| Assist credits | Assist credits | Process Mining intent and activity analysis: “250 assist credits per node or improvement opportunity”[9] |
The product subscriptions overview calls the aggregate “Now Assist usage entitlements”. It shows the total purchased across all subscriptions in the Purchased column and the total consumed across all instances in the Allocated column.[2] ServiceNow does not publish a conversion between assists and the Process Mining assist credits, or between assists and Workflow Data Fabric credits or tokens.
Counting / floors
Assists and assist ratios
Each skill consumes assists in proportion to its use. Subscription Management reports, per skill, the Number of actions and an Assist ratio that shows “the relative cost for each assist”, and “Total assists are calculated by multiplying values in the Number of actions column by values in the Assist ratio column” (Now Assist skill usage is counted as actions multiplied by the assist ratio).[1] For example, if a skill had an assist ratio of 2 and ran 10,000 times in a month, it would consume 20,000 assists. The figures are illustrative, because the ratio for each skill is shown in the instance and is not published in the documentation. The skill table is updated nightly, and it is empty if the instance has no active subscription with assists.[1]
The pool is counted at account level across production and non-production instances, with three documented qualifications (effective 2026-09-10):
- “Assists used in demo instances are excluded from total used assists” (Assists used in demo instances are excluded from total used assists).[1]
- Only instances on Washington DC Patch 2 and higher appear in the per-instance list, and an instance that restricts data sharing hides its usage until its trust configuration is changed (Now Assist instance usage lists only Washington DC Patch 2 and later instances).[1]
- Assists can be the primary or a secondary line item of a purchase, shown in the Entitlement type column. Each product that contributes assists appears with its own start date, end date and purchased quantity (Assists can be the primary or secondary line item of a purchase).[1]
The documentation presents the usage history chart as a planning tool. If usage keeps growing every month, it suggests to “consider purchasing more entitlements to stay in compliance”.[1] It does not state what happens commercially when consumption exceeds the purchased assists.
Creator Plus
AI-assisted development is sold per user as Creator Plus. Subscription Management reports Creator Plus at account level and de-duplicates users. “When a user is allocated to a Creator Plus subscription on more than one instance, that user counts toward the allocation total only once” (Creator Plus allocations are de-duplicated across instances).[3] No per-instance compliance status is calculated. The Status column reads “Account-level only”, a value that “Only applies to Creator Plus products” (Creator Plus subscriptions show Account-level only status).[2] Creator Plus subscriptions are allocated by adding groups with the Creator role.[3]
The link between the role and the meter has loosened. Starting with version 28.4.3 of ServiceNow Otto for Creator, “most ServiceNow Otto for Creator AI capabilities don’t require the now.assist.creator role” (Most ServiceNow Otto for Creator capabilities no longer require now.assist.creator from version 28.4.3).[8] The Creator User meter is still defined by that role.[4]
Custom skills and AI Skill Kit
AI Skill Kit lets customers build their own skills. The field-of-use table sets three limits. Custom skills supplement licensed pre-built skills “within the scope of their Otto purchases”. Customers “must build from the purchased skills instead of attempting to create duplicative versions of licensable ServiceNow skills without purchase” (AI Skill Kit must not be used to duplicate licensable ServiceNow skills). Custom skills may add generative AI to “the custom tables that are provided in a customer’s licenses” (AI Skill Kit custom skills may run on custom tables provided in the customer's licenses).[6] Under the tier model, building net-new skills and agents is a Prime capability.[5]
Process Mining assist credits
Process Mining’s intent and agent activity analysis charges “250 assist credits per node or improvement opportunity”. Up to five subsequent analyses are included at no additional cost, and a failed analysis job is not charged.[9] The figure is specific to that feature.
Virtualization & partitioning
Not applicable. Assists are counted per skill action on ServiceNow-hosted instances, not per processor or host.
Cloud / BYOL
Governance of AI outside ServiceNow is licensed separately. AI Control Tower is included at every tier, but full management of external AI assets requires the AI Control Tower for Enterprise AI license (External AI management needs a separate AI Control Tower for Enterprise AI license).[5] The documents reviewed publish no path for bringing a customer’s own large language model license to reduce assist consumption.
Programs
No stand-alone Now Assist program is published. Generative AI entitlements travel with the product tiers (see ServiceNow product tiers and packages).
Out of scope
- The per-skill assist ratios and the included assist quantity per package, which are in the ServiceNow Otto Overview schedule and were not retrieved.
- Overage pricing for assists. An Overage Fee Schedule is listed among ServiceNow’s entitlement supplements, but its content was not retrieved.[11]
- Moveworks and EmployeeWorks seat licensing, which the product tiers page describes only as bundled by tier.[5]