ServiceNow and Microsoft Partner to Create Enterprise AI Governance and Orchestration Platform

ServiceNow and Microsoft bet on AI governance and orchestration as the path to enterprise platform value

ServiceNow and Microsoft today announced a new partnership designed to deliver what they're calling "seamless agentic AI orchestration and governance capabilities" for joint customers. On the surface, it's a set of technical integrations: ServiceNow's AI Control Tower connecting with Microsoft's AI Foundry and Copilot Studio, ServiceNow Build Agent working with GitHub's Model Context Protocol Server, and a forthcoming integration between ServiceNow's Now Assist and Microsoft Agent 365. But if you look beyond the technical details, what is clear is that the two platform giants are keen to position themselves as the orchestration and governance layer that sits above - and potentially determines the fate of - other AI implementations in the enterprise. This isn't about bolting on the odd useful feature here and there, it's about capturing the highest-value layer in the enterprise technology stack whilst buyers are making early platform decisions. The core proposition is straightforward enough. By connecting ServiceNow's workflow intelligence with Microsoft's productivity tools and cloud infrastructure, the companies are creating what Jon Sigler, executive vice president and general manager of AI platform at ServiceNow, calls "a new era of Autonomous Workflows." According to the announcement, the integration will enable AI agents to work across Microsoft 365 applications like Word, Outlook, and Teams while maintaining enterprise governance controls through ServiceNow's AI Control Tower and App Engine Management Center. For developers, the partnership brings together ServiceNow Build Agent and GitHub Copilot through GitHub's Model Context Protocol Server, allowing developers to access GitHub issues, pull requests, and discussions directly, whilst also automating routine tasks under enterprise governance controls. The integration also connects ServiceNow's Now Assist with Microsoft Agent 365, bringing together personal productivity tools and enterprise workflows so employees can trigger business processes from within familiar Microsoft applications. What's telling is the vendors' emphasis on orchestration rather than replacement. As I've written previously about ServiceNow's platform strategy, the company has spent years positioning itself not as a competitor to departmental applications but as the workflow layer that connects them. This partnership with Microsoft extends that logic: rather than building competing productivity tools, ServiceNow is embedding itself as the orchestration fabric that makes Microsoft's tools more valuable. Paul Hardy, Innovation Officer at ServiceNow, spoke to this strategy in a recent interview I conducted with him (unrelated to today's announcement but relevant to understanding ServiceNow's broader positioning). He emphasized that ServiceNow's differentiation comes from being "a system of orchestration" rather than trying to replace existing platforms. Hardy explained: It's not what you know and what you do, it's how you can sweat those other assets, how you can streamline those other assets. That's why we win so often, because we're not just serving ourselves and ourselves only. This is important context for understanding today's announcement. ServiceNow isn't trying to compete with Microsoft for productivity workflows. Instead, it's positioning itself as the intelligence layer that makes those workflows more valuable by connecting them to broader enterprise processes - by aiming to provide the governance framework that makes agentic AI deployment possible at scale. At the core of today's integration announcement is ServiceNow's AI Control Tower connecting with Microsoft's AI Foundry and Copilot Studio. According to the companies, the Control Tower will automatically discover and catalog Microsoft AI assets like Copilot models, agents, and datasets within ServiceNow's platform, with the intention of giving IT administrators unified visibility into their organization's AI landscape. As CEO Bill McDermott stated during ServiceNow's recent Q3 earnings call: Machines simply can't govern themselves. AI is like any other enterprise asset, it needs to be cataloged, tracked, supervised and secured. ServiceNow's configuration management leadership gives us and our customers a clean single pane of glass to govern all Artificial Intelligence. Hardy echoed this theme in our earlier conversation, noting that ServiceNow introduced its AI Control Tower about two years ago as a replacement for CXO dashboards, describing it as" ...basically transparency and trust from a top-down perspective, allowing people to make those decisions. He emphasized that the Control Tower's value comes from its ability to look beyond just ServiceNow: It's not just looking at ServiceNow because we have Workflow Data Fabric, we can look through. What both companies understand is that governance - not features - is likely the key priority for enterprise AI adoption. Organizations aren't struggling to find AI tools; they're struggling to manage the proliferation of those tools safely and effectively. McDermott referenced a recent CEO gathering where executives complained about "900 proof of concepts going on in the company" that were "uncontrollable," leading them to kill all of them and consolidate on ServiceNow. The Microsoft partnership reiterates this positioning. By making ServiceNow the governance layer for Microsoft's AI implementations, the companies are jointly positioning themselves as the answer to enterprise AI chaos. It's a strategic move that leverages Microsoft's ubiquity in enterprise productivity with ServiceNow's positioning as the enterprise workflow platform. The integration also addresses a fundamental challenge I've written about previously: users don't want to learn new interfaces or switch between systems. As I noted in my coverage of ServiceNow's AI Experience launch, the company is betting that conversational AI interfaces will become the primary way users interact with enterprise systems. Hardy reinforced this in our discussion, noting ServiceNow's longstanding partnership with Microsoft around exactly this issue: We've got an amazing relationship with Microsoft, so that we can serve everything up through Teams. We can now serve it up wherever you want. That is the differentiator that goes all the way back to: it's a system of orchestration, but giving you the flexibility of doing what you need to do. The forthcoming integration between Now Assist and Microsoft Agent 365 is an extension of this. According to the announcement, it will connect users' Microsoft 365 world - files, emails, and chats - with ServiceNow workflows, enabling AI agents that "understand both context and process" to help employees complete tasks and trigger workflows within Word, Outlook, and Teams. Each interaction operates under enterprise identity management and audit controls. This matters because it addresses one of the execution challenges I've highlighted previously: organizational resistance to new ways of working. Rather than forcing users to adopt yet another interface, the integration embeds ServiceNow's capabilities within tools they already use daily. It's a pragmatic approach that recognizes that even superior technology fails if it requires too much organizational change. It's also worth noting the combined horizontal reach of both these companies. Microsoft dominates productivity and collaboration; ServiceNow has positioned itself as the cross-functional workflow platform. Together, they span a massive portion of enterprise operations - from individual productivity tasks to complex multi-system workflows. Both companies are clearly racing to capture as much AI-related work as early as possible, before organizational patterns solidify around other platforms. Hardy was explicit about this dynamic when discussing how customers approach AI strategy. He noted that many organizations initially experienced "foam up" around ChatGPT two years ago, with C-suite executives demanding AI without clear business cases or use cases: Now we are building use cases around how we can add value to your organization. That's based upon working with customers as lighthouse partners to identify real-life use cases that they are challenged with every day. This suggests both companies understand that the early moves in enterprise AI adoption will have lasting effects. Organizations that standardize on ServiceNow for AI governance and Microsoft for AI-enabled productivity will find it increasingly difficult to shift to competing platforms as workflows become embedded and organizational muscle memory develops. Hardy also noted an interesting shift in where AI strategy sits organizationally - not with IT, but with shared service centers or Global Business Services functions: They've already got the visibility. They already know the types of work and the types of agents they might need. They've got probably the biggest trust across the organization. This organizational positioning matters because it suggests AI adoption is being framed as a business value question rather than a technology question Throughout our conversation, Hardy also repeatedly emphasized ServiceNow's positioning against what he called "walled gardens" - vendors who try to lock customers into proprietary ecosystems. He contrasted this with ServiceNow's approach using Workflow Data Fabric and zero-copy integration: You're not the walled garden. What you're actually allowing me to do is have flexibility. We'd love to replace some of those other platforms that are out there, but you do it when you're ready. You do it when you've got enough data to make a real informed decision. So, rather than trying to compete with Microsoft's massive installed base, ServiceNow is aligning with it. Equally, Microsoft recognizes ServiceNow's own horizontal reach across not only IT, but many enterprise departments. The irony, of course, is that by positioning itself as the anti-walled garden option, ServiceNow is building a different kind of lock-in: not at the application level but at the orchestration layer. Once an organization's AI governance, workflow automation, and cross-system orchestration run through ServiceNow, extracting that becomes extraordinarily difficult - potentially more difficult than replacing a departmental application. However, this partnership will likely be welcomed by buyers who are trying to limit screen switching and get their platforms of choice closely working together. This feels like a case of sensible co-opetition, with both vendors playing to their strengths.

ServiceNow Advances Enterprise AI Through Seamless Integrations with Microsoft, Enabling Collaboration, Orchestration, and Governance

ServiceNow announced a set of new and forthcoming integrations with Microsoft, including an integration with Microsoft Agent 365, that deliver seamless agentic AI orchestration and governance capabilities for joint customers. By uniting workflow intelligence, trusted cloud, and AI governance, the companies will connect copilots, agents, and data seamlessly across Microsoft 365 and the ServiceNow AI Platform, to enable comprehensive visibility, compliance, and control over AI agents, setting a new standard for enterprise AI. The new capabilities meet users where they work across the Microsoft 365 environment, turning insight into action instantly. From conversations in Microsoft Teams, to meetings scheduled in Microsoft Outlook, to documents created in Microsoft Word, ServiceNow is uniting agentic AI capabilities across systems -- with trust, control, and measurable business outcomes built in. The combined capabilities of ServiceNow and Microsoft allow businesses to effectively manage teams of AI agents that work together to accomplish tasks autonomously and deliver real business outcomes. The ServiceNow AI Control Tower will integrate with Microsoft Foundry and Copilot Studio to provide full oversight for agents deployed on Microsoft platforms. This integration lets organizations apply consistent policies and controls across platforms, ensuring secure and accountable innovation. Enterprises can automatically discover and manage Microsoft Foundry and Copilot studio agents within the ServiceNow AI Platform. ServiceNow's Configuration Management Database (CMDB) underpins AI Control Tower, unifying information from both internal and external sources to provide AI Control Tower with continuous, context-rich visibility across systems, ensuring agents operate with the most current, cross-platform data within clearly defined governance parameters. Additionally, the AI Control Tower Value Dashboard monitors AI adoption, performance, and ROI -- helping quantify business impact. Real-time monitoring provides visibility into security, governance, and risk, boosting confidence, ensuring compliance, and enabling organizations to scale AI investments responsibly. unlock AI for developers: ServiceNow Build Agent and GitHub now work together to securely share context and capabilities. With GitHub's Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, ServiceNow Build Agent can securely access GitHub issues, pull requests and discussions, and automate repetitive tasks while keeping developers in control. The result is a frictionless, AI-assisted development experience where business and code workflows converge, eliminating context switching and boosting focus. This ability to use GitHub's MCP server with ServiceNow Build Agent marks a major step toward agentic systems that collaborate across platforms, accelerating development while maintaining enterprise-grade governance. Increase productivity across everyday apps: The soon to be available integration between ServiceNow's AI Experience, Now Assist, and Microsoft Agent 365 will bridge the gap between personal productivity and enterprise workflows. It connects the user's world -- files, emails, and chats in Microsoft 365 -- with powerful workflows from ServiceNow. Together, they enable AI teammates that understand both context and process, helping employees summarize content, complete tasks, and trigger workflows securely -- within Word, Outlook, and trigger workflows securely - within Word, Outlook, and the ServiceNow AI Platform.