ServiceNow Positions Itself as the AI Operating System for Enterprise, Challenging Traditional App Stack

ServiceNow positions itself as the AI operating system for the enterprise - 'the traditional app stack will collapse'

ServiceNow's journey from IT service management tool to enterprise platform company has been one of the more consistent narratives in enterprise software over the past decade. While competitors have assembled patchwork empires through frenzied acquisitions and pivoted strategies with each emerging technology trend, ServiceNow has maintained a remarkably steady course - building out from its ITSM roots to span HR, customer service, security and more, all while steadfastly adhering to its "one platform, one architecture, one data model" philosophy. The company has consistently doubled down on integration and cross-functional workflows rather than just building specialized applications for individual departments (although there are of course specialized product offerings within the Now platform itself). It's a strategy that has delivered returns for the vendor, in terms of revenue growth and market expansion. Now, at Knowledge 2025 in Las Vegas this week, the culmination of this long-term strategy is becoming apparent. CEO Bill McDermott has declared that ServiceNow isn't just participating in the AI revolution - it's positioning itself to be the very foundation upon which enterprise AI will operate, the orchestration layer that will coordinate autonomous agents across departmental boundaries. It's a bold vision, but as someone that has been covering ServiceNow for a decade, it feels like this is 'the moment' it has been building its foundations towards. That being said, it's a vision that will be fiercely battled against in the market from competitors also looking to stake their claim on enterprise AI. Today the company has unveiled the new ServiceNow AI Platform, which aims to unify intelligence, data, and orchestration across businesses through a conversational AI Engagement Layer. The platform includes expanded partnerships, thousands of 'ready-to-work' AI agents, and most notably the introduction of the ServiceNow AI Control Tower - all aimed at transforming how enterprises deploy and manage AI. CEO Bill McDermott, never one to understate his company's ambitions, is making characteristically bold claims about how AI will transform the enterprise technology landscape. During today's keynote he said: The traditional app stack is going to collapse. The number of apps are going to be radically reduced. 20th century systems are going to become core databases. This will no doubt raise a few eyebrows across the industry, especially given that in the past ServiceNow has been careful to say that its 'platform of platforms' approach is 'win-win' for everyone. It seems that those days of diplomacy may be behind us. These systems, McDermott says, will feed into the ServiceNow platform, "where the real work is happening." The company's ambitions are expanding in the era of agentic AI - autonomous AI agents that can understand, plan, and execute complex tasks across multiple systems without human intervention. It's not just about augmenting human capabilities with AI; it's about fundamentally reshaping how enterprise software functions. For McDermott, today's enterprise technology landscape has created an enormous waste of human potential that extends far beyond simple inefficiency. The fragmentation of enterprise software has led to what he calls the "destruction of time". He said: 40% of office productivity is wasted as people swivel chair between 17 different application experiences a day. It blows your mind. This is a productivity disaster. This isn't just a convenience issue - it's an economic one with implications for global productivity, he added: The cost of this legacy inefficiency is killing us. It's a ten trillion dollar tax on the US economy alone. That's equivalent to 7% of GDP in the world. This fragmentation problem isn't new - it's been the bane of enterprise IT for decades. Companies have thrown enormous resources at integration efforts, middleware solutions, and custom development to connect disparate systems, often with limited success. What's different now is that ServiceNow sees AI as the catalyst - a strong incentive - that will break this pattern of fragmentation. ServiceNow's solution is to replace the fragmented application landscape with a unified AI platform - what McDermott calls "the New World Order of things." He describes the new ServiceNow platform as: AI plus data plus workflows on one fully integrated platform that replaces all of the chaos with clarity. This positions ServiceNow not as just another application in the enterprise stack, but as something more fundamental - the operating system upon which AI-driven enterprises will run. It's ambitious positioning, but one that does arguably build on ServiceNow's established role as an integration and workflow automation platform. The next logical step. As noted above, at the center of ServiceNow's announcements is the new ServiceNow AI Platform, which introduces several key technologies to deliver enterprise-wide orchestration. According to the company, the platform "unifies intelligence, data, and orchestration -- empowering enterprises to move from fragmented pilots to full-scale AI execution, through a smart, conversational AI Engagement Layer." This tackles a significant challenge in enterprise AI adoption - something diginomica sees time and time again is organizations implementing point solutions for specific AI use cases, but these often remain disconnected from the broader business operations, limiting their impact. ServiceNow aims to address this fragmentation by providing a unified platform for AI deployment across the enterprise. Amit Zavery, ServiceNow's President, Chief Product Officer, and COO, described the fundamental challenge facing enterprises trying to implement AI at scale: The reality is that today, AI is gathered across enterprises in silos - it's fragmented, disconnected. To truly transform your business, you bring in AI, data and workflows into the enterprise grade platform you already rely on. Something I've been pushing vendors on in their enterprise AI pitches is how the agentic element often focuses on quite narrow workflows or tasks, which have limited impact. The challenge, of course, is that these vendors are often limited to their own 'island of data'. ServiceNow believes its platform approach addresses this challenge by providing a unified architecture for AI deployment. The ServiceNow AI Platform is built on an architecture that Zavery claims is uniquely positioned for enterprise-scale deployment, drawing on the company's long-established workflow automation capabilities. He said: Our platform architecture is purpose built to scale across the enterprise. It performs consistently, whether you are automating a single process or an entire business. With the CMDB at its core, it offers a consolidated real time view of every asset across your company. The reference to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is at the core of all of this - it's been a cornerstone of ServiceNow's platform for years, providing a comprehensive mapping of all IT assets and their relationships. This has now evolved into a much broader enterprise asset and relationship database, providing the contextual information that AI agents need to understand organizational structures, systems, and processes. It is certainly an advantage when considering agent-to-agent collaboration. Complementing the AI platform message is ServiceNow's newly announced AI Control Tower, which the vendor describes as "a centralized command center to govern, manage, secure, and realize value from any ServiceNow and third-party AI agent, model, and workflow on a unified platform." As already highlighted, this aims to address one of the emerging challenges in enterprise AI - as organizations deploy more AI solutions across departments, governance and coordination become increasingly complex. Without a centralized approach, AI deployments can create new silos and inconsistencies, undermining the productivity benefits they're meant to deliver. What's the point in replicating siloed human work with digital agents? Zavery positions the AI Control Tower as essential for managing this growing AI workforce in a coordinated way. He said: The AI Control Tower is the key to leading your AI workforce, and we are launching it today. Now you can manage, govern and secure every AI agent across the enterprise from a single unified command center. This technology isn't limited to ServiceNow's own agents but works across the enterprise ecosystem, acknowledging that organizations will deploy AI solutions from multiple vendors: And the best part is it works seamlessly with all your AI agents, not just your ServiceNow agents. This openness reflects a recognition that enterprises will inevitably have heterogeneous AI environments, with specialized solutions for different functions. Whilst some vendors are attempting a walled garden approach to agentic AI in the short term, to capture as much market spend as possible, this will likely not stick in the long term as customers seek better returns on their AI investments. The key is coordinating these diverse AI capabilities into a coherent system - precisely what the AI Control Tower aims to do. Alongside the Control Tower, ServiceNow announced the AI Agent Fabric, which creates a communication infrastructure that allows AI agents to collaborate across systems and departments. This addresses another critical challenge in enterprise AI - enabling different AI systems to share context and coordinate actions. Zavery said: With AI Agent Fabric we are enabling collaboration between agentic systems. And this is the future of APIs. Instead of using every system's unique interface, simply say what you want to do, and the agents take care of the rest. This recognition that AI capabilities are intrinsically linked to data quality and accessibility reflects an understanding of what makes AI successful in enterprise environments. Even the most sophisticated AI models will deliver limited value if they can't access the right data at the right time. ServiceNow believes that its AI Agent Fabric is the key to enabling this. As Zavery added: And to solve this we created AI Agent Fabric, a connective tissue that gives your agents real time, zero copy access to data wherever it resides. No more copying data, no more delays, just instant insights and action. This approach addresses one of the major challenges in enterprise data management - accessing information across disparate systems without creating additional data silos through extensive copying and synchronization. The "zero copy" approach maintains data in its source systems while making it accessible to AI agents in real-time, reducing both complexity and potential inconsistencies. Zavery added: Workflow Data Fabric connects the disparate data sources across the enterprise to give you the unified view. And it has everything it needs to take intelligent actions across the enterprise to deliver outcomes in real time. ServiceNow's approach to AI is built on what McDermott repeatedly emphasizes as a unified architecture that spans the enterprise - a stark contrast to the siloed applications that dominate many organizations. He reiterated today: One platform, one architecture, one data model. We are the only ones that do what we do, the way we do it. The key tenet of ServiceNow's approach is that it is a platform that spans across departments and functions, enabling ServiceNow to orchestrate workflows that cross traditional boundaries - a capability that becomes even more valuable in the AI era, where processes increasingly need to cross departmental lines. McDermott added: It goes east to west, across every function. And it goes north to south, up and down the stack. We integrate all systems, all applications and all data sources. We're going to lift it all into the workflow layer, where we can apply autonomous agentic AI, to orchestrate your business processes. Whether that's recruit to hire, procure to pay, design to product, lead to cash or sale to service. We've got you covered. The mantra behind ServiceNow's AI platform is to transform how work gets done across every department and function through what the company calls "autonomous agentic AI." This represents a significant step-change beyond the assistant-style AI that has dominated enterprise deployments to date. McDermott described how this capability will extend throughout organizations, touching every aspect of business operations: We're going to bring AI agents to every corner of your business. If realized, this could fundamentally change how employees interact with their systems, creating personalized AI assistants that understand each person's role, responsibilities, and needs. He added: Imagine an AI twin that works for you and works for every persona in your corporation. Every person in a company is going to have an AI companion. This ambition for personalized AI companions - albeit this is largely still a 'vision', rather than reality - potentially represents a significant shift in how enterprise software interfaces with users. Rather than requiring employees to navigate multiple applications and learn complex interfaces, ServiceNow believes AI companions will understand intent and execute tasks across systems on behalf of users - dramatically simplifying the employee experience. McDermott provided an example of how this would transform work for sales professionals, automating many of the administrative tasks that currently consume their time. He said: Just think of it from a sales professional's perspective. Pick my territory, give me my best opportunities first, send me my proposals, get my renewals done. You've made a sale - how much did I make? Calculate my compensation for me. Everything happening in milliseconds instead of days and weeks. For McDermott, the ServiceNow AI Platform represents a fundamental shift in how enterprise software functions - one that positions the company at the center of AI-driven transformation rather than merely participating in it. The prediction from McDermott that traditional enterprise applications will be demoted to essentially data repositories, with ServiceNow's platform handling the process orchestration and user interaction layers above them, is provocative to say the least. It's a dramatic reimagining of the enterprise software landscape that would fundamentally change the position of many established vendors. However, when McDermott was appointed as CEO of ServiceNow, he said that he wanted the vendor to be the 'defining enterprise software company of the 21st Century' - and his comments today give us a much clearer idea of how he hopes this will play out. He sees ServiceNow as the orchestration layer above these systems, integrating AI, data, and workflows into a unified platform for business transformation. As McDermott said: The software industrial complex of the 21st century is converging onto ServiceNow, as the AI operating system for the enterprise. ServiceNow's announcements at Knowledge 2025 represent its most ambitious claims yet - positioning the company as not just as another enterprise application provider but as the central orchestration layer for AI across the enterprise. It's a logical extension of the company's established platform strategy but dramatically expands its potential impact on how organizations operate. The company's consistent focus on "one platform, one architecture, one data model" has created a foundation that seems particularly well-suited for enterprise-wide AI orchestration. While competitors have built specialized applications for specific departments, ServiceNow has spent years focusing on integration and cross-functional workflows - an approach that could prove advantageous in deploying AI agents that need to work across traditional organizational boundaries. McDermott's vision of traditional applications being demoted to database roles while ServiceNow handles the "real work" will likely ruffle a few feathers and feels like a new, more aggressive competitive approach from the company. ServiceNow is essentially claiming that the company will become the operating system for AI-powered enterprises. Whether existing application providers will willingly accept this relegation remains to be seen, and many are developing their own AI strategies to maintain their strategic position. The technical challenges in delivering this vision are significant, from data quality to AI governance to integration with legacy systems. ServiceNow has made significant progress in addressing these, but fully realizing the vision of enterprise-wide AI orchestration will require continued innovation and execution and buy-in from technology buyers and department heads alike. Even more challenging will be the organizational changes required for enterprises to adopt this approach. Convincing department leaders to surrender control to a centralized AI platform won't be easy, especially when their jobs and influence are often tied to existing systems and processes. That being said, if ServiceNow succeeds, it could fundamentally change how enterprises operate, with autonomous agents handling routine tasks across departments while humans focus on high-value activities. That's a compelling vision, but one that still feels far off from the reality of where enterprises are today. That's not to say we aren't heading there, but there's lots of work to be done and I'm looking forward to hearing how customers are adopting this in practice over the coming days.

Enterprise AI checkmate? ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott says 'CEOs are now demanding software losers'

Last year at Knowledge 2024, ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott told me his company was "playing chess, not checkers" in its approach to enterprise software strategy. The implication was clear - while competitors were making reactionary moves to capitalize on the generative AI boom, ServiceNow was thinking several steps ahead, methodically positioning its workflow platform as the orchestration layer that would unify enterprise systems in an AI-driven future. Fast forward twelve months to Knowledge 2025, and McDermott's strategic language has shifted from polite chess metaphors to a more competitive stance. He told me: I always said 'nobody has to lose for us to win'. The customer is changing that narrative as we speak. And what the customer is now saying is, 'I want somebody to lose'. And that's because they want to reduce the number of applications that they have in the enterprise, and they want to take the stack down with AI. It's a provocative statement that signals a notable change in ServiceNow's market positioning. The company has traditionally presented itself as a "platform of platforms" that can peacefully coexist with and enhance other enterprise applications. Now, McDermott is suggesting something quite different - that ServiceNow's AI Control Tower will become the arbiter of which applications deliver genuine value in the age of agentic AI, and which will be eliminated. Whilst McDermott has argued in the past that 'everybody can win', as we know value typically rises through to the top of the stack - and ServiceNow wants to capture the most value right at the top of the stack. I pointed out last year that ServiceNow has a unique position to deliver on the AI opportunity, as it has slowly, and methodically, been building out its platform of platforms approach for a decade. It's been building itself as an enterprise engagement layer and this positions it nicely to capture the AI market, as the main point of interaction for users getting work done (if it has access to all the data). In fact, 10 years ago I predicted that ServiceNow could be the platform to beat exactly because of this - it can touch all corners of the enterprise. There's a reason the vendor has been aggressively going after the CRM space over the past 12 months...it's the final piece of enterprise data capture for ServiceNow to make its 'end-to-end AI operating system' a reality. This gear shift in messaging follows ServiceNow's announcement yesterday, where it announced its ServiceNow AI Platform and AI Control Tower - technologies that aim to serve as "a centralized command center to govern, manage, secure, and realize value from any ServiceNow and third-party AI agent, model, and workflow on a unified platform." It's worth reading that piece to fully understand the technology strategy behind McDermott's comments. However, the competitive change in tone reflects what McDermott sees as a fundamental shift in how CEOs are approaching their technology stack in response to autonomous AI agents. He said: The first thing is, companies are now realizing that agentic AI, especially autonomous agentic AI, is the gateway to prosperity. They have to utilize technology that goes across the various functions of these companies. But achieving this cross-functional AI orchestration is impossible with the fractured application landscapes that most enterprises have accumulated over decades. If organizations want to really enable agent-to-agent communication, where work is carried out across the enterprise, they need a cohesive platform to pull these agents and the data they're working with together. As McDermott noted: These companies, over the last six decades, have been structured by functional silos and very rigid org charts. And so they're stuck. They're stuck with different releases of technology in those silos... It's a chaotic situation." According to McDermott, CEOs are now viewing these siloed applications as financial and operational liabilities rather than assets: CEOs are saying, I want my OPEX model down; I don't want to pay for applications that aren't adding value." This aligns with what I've been observing across the enterprise market for years - technology fragmentation is stifling progress and buyers are cobbling together systems in search of 'frictionless enterprise'. However, this demand for seamless integration becomes more imperative with AI, as the benefits and value will be limited if data can't flow across the enterprise. For years, ServiceNow has said that it can help companies get to this position of enterprise-wide data flow and unified work with the Now platform. However, it carefully maintained that it could add value without threatening established enterprise applications - a "rising tide lifts all boats" narrative that helped it grow while minimizing competitive friction. Now, McDermott is openly suggesting that ServiceNow will help determine which enterprise applications remain viable. He said: Fine, Salesforce wants an agent, have an agent. Workday wants an agent, have an agent. SAP wants an agent, have an agent. We'll have the control tower that works with all those agents. So our agents will control those agents in the form of a business process or an automated workflow. No problem." I think some vendors in the industry may have a problem with this, but nonetheless, this positioning of ServiceNow as not just another player but as the orchestration layer that determines which agents have value is the 'checkmate' that McDermott hinted at last year. He said: I had one bank consolidate over 250 applications onto ServiceNow. So it's happening. In the public sector. We see situations where I can take $3.5 billion in cost out by just consolidating and getting out of these idiotic applications that don't make a difference." In corporations, I went to one that has 175 instances of CRM. The CEO said to me, 'I don't know what value I'm getting, I'm spending triple digit millions on this'." This is the most competitive language I've heard from McDermott since he started at ServiceNow. He's always been one for enthusiasm and ambition, but has been carefully diplomatic over the years. From my experience at Knowledge 2025 this week, it feels like there is a renewed sense of urgency coming from the vendor and its leadership team - a strategic bet that now is the moment to take down the current kings of enterprise software. Since joining ServiceNow, McDermott has said that he wants the vendor to be the defining enterprise software company of the 21st Century - and I get the sense that this strategy, an ambition to become the AI operating system for enterprises, is how he sees that happening. What's changed in a year is the level of confidence - and the explicit acknowledgment that this vision implies winners and losers. Where last year's messaging was about coexistence and strategic positioning, this year's is about market consolidation and customer-driven elimination of redundant systems. Despite the compelling narrative, it's also true that enterprises are navigating a challenging economic environment that demands rigorous business cases for significant technology investments. In conversations with Knowledge attendees this week, I found a consistent pattern - while technology leaders broadly agree with McDermott's vision, they're struggling to translate that vision into concrete, defendable business cases. When I spoke with three ServiceNow customers prior to my interview with McDermott, I asked them if they were going to pursue the CEO's vision of an app stack collapse and introduce ServiceNow as the AI operating system of the enterprise - all three conceptually agreed. They saw the value in creating a unified "AI digital spine" for their organizations - but were caught in a "build versus buy" debate, weighing both approaches against increasing cost pressures and the need for demonstrable returns. When I put this to McDermott, he understood these pressures, but said that he believes that his 'Now Next AI' initiative will go some way to help address these challenges, by helping customers build the business case, and get them to AI value quickly. The initiative brings together ServiceNow's top talent to work directly with customers. McDermott explained: I put my black belt team together, from engineering, presale, consulting, could even be a partner, that is a domain expert in that specific category, we roll up our sleeves shoulder to shoulder on site with the customer." On site is insight. And we help them get live quickly, because the faster they go live, the more money they make. And adopt this at mass scale. Because the faster they adopt, and the more they adopt, the more money they make. This hands-on approach targets the core challenge many organizations face - developing quantifiable business cases that can withstand CFO scrutiny in an environment where cost containment often trumps innovation. McDermott added: The business cases are all geared that way. So it's a win-win. You get what you want. Of course, we prosper too, but we only get a small percentage of the taking compared to what you're getting. So they're very happy with this. As noted above, ServiceNow is entering the ring in a way that it hasn't previously. The gloves are off and McDermott recognizes that if he doesn't take this opportunity to lead the enterprise AI management and orchestration role, another vendor will fill the gap. And it is worth reiterating that a lot of other vendors in the market are pushing their own agentic AI platforms and are seeking to do exactly the same thing. So, why does McDermott think ServiceNow is uniquely positioned to 'win' at this moment in time? What is the logic behind his move for 'checkmate'? McDermott argues that ServiceNow has two key advantages. Firstly, ServiceNow started in IT and it is the technology function that will likely lead enterprise-wide AI endeavors. It is selling to its core base. And secondly, as already mentioned, ServiceNow has spent the last decade positioning itself as the platform of platforms, working on integrations and data access. He told me today: Let's assume, for example, a sales-oriented company was saying, 'I can do it'. The problem with that is the sales director doesn't have the technical domain expertise to understand AI, much less autonomous agentic AI. ServiceNow started in IT. It is the Chief Digital Information Officers, the Chief Technology Officers, the Chief Information Officers, that will be the gateway or the control plane for agentic AI in these corporations. And so the first thing the CEO is going to do is spin the chair right to the technical person." And so, uniquely, we have a heritage of technology that stems from that buying center. And we built a platform that always went across all of the functions. We had to do that, because we are the workflow automation company. We are uniquely positioned for this moment. And if you think I'm exaggerating the level of confidence coming from McDermott at this moment - his drive to take the fight to the market - this is what he said about the other enterprise software players: [The other players] are very good at one thing. And that one thing, that one trick pony now can be a database that feeds that workflow automation platform that goes across all the functions. You don't lose that silo capability, but you gain so much more strength when you manage by process. Speaking specifically, he added: Take SAP, for example, a company that I know and spent a big part of my life with. We're cooperating beautifully with SAP. We're very friendly to SAP agents, and SAP is very friendly to our agents. And they agree that we're the control tower. And we agree that they're the financial system of record - in our company and most big companies around the world. And they also agree that we're the workflow automation platform. But not all vendors are as "secure in their position" as SAP, according to McDermott. Others now are feeling like, 'Hey, man, I grew fast, and I have lots of instances, lots of different instances that don't necessarily integrate with each other, or the other apps in an enterprise'. They would never have been able to solve 'the other apps in the enterprise problem' anyway. But not even integrating with each other has set them up for a real problem when you try to explain to an intelligent technologist that you're going to sell them an agent. While he doesn't name names here, the implication is clear. Popular names in the enterprise software space, the big logos we all recognize, which have grown rapidly through acquisition, McDermott believes may find themselves vulnerable in this new landscape where integration and cross-functional workflows are paramount. When asked directly about Salesforce, for instance, McDermott is diplomatic but pointed. He said: Does Salesforce still matter? I think that the customer will always decide who matters. I think that on a system of record level, they're a very large company. And I think as a system of record there might be a place for them. The "might be" is doing a lot of work in that sentence... As I noted yesterday, and have done for a number of years, unlike competitors who have built empires through acquisitions and pivoted strategies with each new technology trend, ServiceNow has maintained a remarkably steady course - expanding from its ITSM roots while adhering to its "one platform, one architecture, one data model" philosophy. This consistency has positioned the company well for the age of agentic AI, where cross-functional workflows and unified data models are essential for effective orchestration. The vision McDermott presents - of a unified AI platform that eliminates the complexity and inefficiency of navigating multiple applications - is compelling and aligns with the broader industry shift toward process automation. However, the boldness of ServiceNow's new positioning also introduces risks. By explicitly suggesting that some enterprise applications will be eliminated, the company may alienate potential partners and provoke more aggressive competitive responses. The journey from vision to reality also faces significant challenges - from organizational resistance to technical complexity to budgets and cost pressures. What's clear is that the AI-driven consolidation of the enterprise software landscape that McDermott predicts is already underway. Whether ServiceNow emerges as "the defining enterprise software company of the 21st century" - as McDermott has previously claimed - remains to be seen. But the company's consistent focus on integration and cross-functional workflows has positioned it well for this moment of industry change. Ultimately, it will be customers who decide which applications deliver sufficient value to survive in the age of autonomous agents. What's changing is that, according to McDermott, they're increasingly making those decisions with a willingness to eliminate - or at the very least demote - underperforming software. This would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The game of enterprise software chess continues, but McDermott is now confidently declaring "checkmate" on applications that can't prove their value in an AI-orchestrated future.

ServiceNow CEO: 'The Destruction Of Time Is Like The Ultimate Enemy Of Humanity'

'You have to realize the soul-crushing work that most people are stuck with on a day-to-day basis is not actually the work they ever dreamed of doing. And in most cases, it's not even what they signed up for,' says ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott as he unveils Now Next AI, a relaunch of the company's AI platform. AI-focused digital transformation technology developer ServiceNow Tuesday is kicking off its annual ServiceNow Knowledge conference in Las Vegas. However, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company's top executives, led by CEO Bill McDermott, on Monday got the conference off to an early start by holding its annual Financial Analyst Day with discussions around the company's current position and future plans with a roomful of analysts and a handful of press, including CRN. The first, and arguably the most important presenter, was McDermott, who spoke of his vision of ServiceNow as what he called "DESCO21C," or the defining software company of the 21st century. ServiceNow is a company that continues to grow by expanding its flagship Now platform for building digital workflows that McDermott called a "once-in-a-generation platform" that now cuts across a customer's entire enterprise. [Related: ServiceNow CEO McDermott: 'We're Running The Table In CRM'] "[We] can integrate any data source, any hyperscaler cloud and any LLM into the ServiceNow platform," he said. "So I really like our positioning. The TAM [total addressable market] keeps expanding. It's growing by the day, and we're just innovating at a pace I don't think any other company could match." Most recently, that growing TAM is acceleration in large part to an emphasis on AI and in particular agentic AI, McDermott said. Agentic AI refers to the ability of AI from different systems being able to communicate with each other to better manage processes while lessening the need for human intervention. Automation comes when "you apply agentic AI, not fake silo agents that are going to a dead-end street doing U-turns but are real agentic AI agents that are reinventing business processes and how companies run," he said. To learn more, read more of McDermott's key points from ServiceNow's Financial Analyst Day. McDermott said ServiceNow is riding a wave of three growth factors that are coming together now to quickly expand the company's TAM. "One is the core business," he said. "Every great company has to have a great core business. [Six years ago, I told the board] that we would expand the perimeter of what ServiceNow is capable of and we would build a once-in-a-generation platform. And recently, we added data and we more than doubled our TAM with RaptorDB and Workflow Data Fabric. So now companies can integrate those systems of record. They can integrate any data source, any hyperscaler cloud and any LLM into the ServiceNow platform. So I really like our positioning. The TAM keeps expanding. It's growing by the day, and we're just innovating at a pace I don't think any other company could match." ServiceNow, like the rest of the IT industry, is currently having to deal with macroeconomic disruptions, but it is uniquely able to not only weather the disruptions but come out more strong, McDermott said. "First, this is not our first macro disruption," he said. "We've been through many of them, and we really don't get shook up about it. I take it more as a weather report than I do something we should be all shook up about. So we're cool, calm, and collected. And history shows in enterprise software, the platforms that matter always come out of disruptions stronger on the other side, and I think that has never been more true than it is right now." McDermott said that when he says his company integrates with the entire stack, it is taking all the objections off the table to bring ServiceNow in as a customer's central nervous system. "And so think about this," he said. "You integrate with any system of record, then you move any data into a workflow where you're automating things across all business processes. But then you apply agentic AI, not fake silo agents that are going to a dead-end street doing U-turns but are real agentic AI agents that are reinventing business processes and how companies run. This is the AI layer. This is the real AI agent company, and when customers hear that, it clicks, it just makes sense. So we feel fantastic about the platform." CTOs, CEOs, COOs and CEOs, when looking at innovating across their enterprise, are not looking at just their ERP system, their CRM system, or their human capital management (HCM) system. "They're thinking, 'Wow, probably ServiceNow has something going on there. Let me learn more about that,'" he said. "And so if you just look at the great [Nvidia CEO] Jensen Huang himself, he calls ServiceNow the AI operating system of the enterprise. And that's how he uses us, and that's how he thinks about it. And we've been jealously guarding this clean pane of glass to really simulate the iPhone for the enterprise. It's clean and it's beautiful. There's enormous complexity behind it, but the user doesn't feel the pain. And so at Knowledge 25 we're going to relaunch the ServiceNow AI platform. [Customers] want us to meet them where they are. They want to do business with a company that has empathy at mass scale. So when I say any infrastructure, any data and any AI model all coalescing on one platform, ServiceNow, the AI platform for business transformation, that's the story we're telling. The key to understanding ServiceNow's future is to remember that it is putting AI to work for people, McDermott said. "You have to realize the soul-crushing work that most people are stuck with on a day-to-day basis is not actually the work they ever dreamed of doing," he said. "And in most cases, it's not even what they signed up for. Think about this: The destruction of time is like the ultimate enemy of humanity. On average, people waste five hours a day on that smartphone in their pockets. In the enterprise, there's a legacy tax of $10 trillion, just for America as a country, for legacy systems that are not well integrated and don't talk nice to each other. That's equivalent to a 7 percent GDP tax. This is a massive problem. And therefore, when I think about this platform, we invented something we call Now Next AI. And with Now Next AI, we're going to make bold moves with lighthouse customers [early adopters] where we bring our team of black belts and the customers' best and our partners' best to get these customers innovating across the enterprise, get them live swiftly, and push broad adoption from a shareholder value standpoint that's going to click the meter after all the free use cases are over. And for the customer, it's going to enable them to lower their cost, fix their margin profile no matter what revenue environment they're in, and it's going to let them dream again, grow again. And so today, when you see CRM and you think about configure, price, quote, sell and service all on one platform, you're going to see only one company in the world that can do it. So we intend to make a very bold move and go all in on CRM with data. We have the world's fastest database, RaptorDB, 27 times faster than anything else we put against it. And we're going to combine RaptorDB, Workflow Data Fabric and the automation layer, fundamentally changing the way companies do business. And you'll see how we take this to every industry, every geography, and we put this together with our partners to get mass scale across the globe. ServiceNow has enjoyed strong growth because it places stock not only in its own employees, but in running the company using its own Now platform, McDermott said. Unlike companies that hit speedbumps with the pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, ServiceNow made sure it kept its employees. "At that time, we had a no-layoff pledge with our employees because we knew we hired with tremendous intentionality in the first place, and no matter what shockwave came our way, we would need the great people on the other side," he said. "And now we're up to 1.7 million people that are applying to ServiceNow annually. So it's really hard to get in here. And the other thing I think is super important is 'Now on Now.' We drink our own champagne before we bring it into the marketplace, and we found all the jobs that our technology can do in every corner of the office. And that's why we're able to absorb tremendous growth and still give the leverage and the free cash flow margin that our shareholders truly appreciate."