Top trends every ServiceNow platform owner should know in 2026

In 2026, those close to the ServiceNow Platform are being asked to do more than keep the platform stable. The expectations have shifted: move faster, adopt AI responsibly, stay compliant, and prove measurable value.

It means ServiceNow is no longer “just a tool” in your organization, but also becoming a true digital operations backbone. It raises the bar for platform leadership: governance, architecture, data quality, and change discipline matter more than ever.

Below are the trends we believe will shape the next 12 months for Platform Owners including actions you can do now to stay ahead.

Trend 1: From generative assist to agentic execution

AI in ServiceNow is quickly moving beyond summarizing tickets or drafting knowledge. Many organizations are now exploring agentic and semi-autonomous workflows,  where AI doesn’t just suggest but can take action within defined guardrails.

For those close to the platform, this means shifting focus from "building flows" to "governing agents."

What to do now

• Choose 2–3 safe, high-volume use cases to start with (triage, routing, simple approvals).
• Design human-in-the-loop checkpoints for sensitive steps (access, identity, financial/regulated decisions).
• Define a simple success model: what good looks like, who owns it, and how it’s monitored.

Trend 2: AI governance becomes platform governance (especially in Europe)

With the EU AI Act in full effect as of 2026, compliance is no longer a "legal" problem, it’s a configuration task. Platform owners are now responsible for the Model Inventory and are being pulled into questions such as:

• What data is AI allowed to use?
• Who can enable or configure AI features?
• How do we log decisions, track outcomes, and demonstrate control?

This doesn’t mean you need to own legal interpretation, but you do need to ensure your platform operating model includes AI controls.

What to do now

• Activate the AI Governance Dashboard: Track which models (BYOM or Now LLM) are accessing which data tables.
• Data Masking & Privacy: Ensure Sensitive Data Discovery is active on your production instances to prevent PII from being used in LLM training or context windows.

Trend 3: Continuous release replaces the upgrade project

ServiceNow keeps moving fast. Major releases, platform enhancements, and new capabilities land frequently. And the teams that benefit most are those that treat release management as a repeatable operating rhythm, not a once-a-year heroic effort.

If upgrades are stressful, it’s usually not the upgrade itself—it’s what the upgrade reveals: brittle customizations, unclear ownership, poor test coverage, and under-documented integrations.

What to do now

• Automated Test Framework (ATF) is mandatory: If your ATF coverage is below 70%, you cannot keep up with 2026 release velocities.
• Adopt "Vanilla Plus": Use the Upgrade Center to aggressively revert customizations to "Out of the Box" (OOTB) whenever a Store app replaces a bespoke feature.

Trend 4: The rise of the "creator studio" guardrails

Low-code and citizen development are powerful accelerators especially when business teams want workflow delivery speed. But without guardrails, you get a fragmented landscape: duplicated apps, inconsistent user experience, and growing technical debt.

The challenge in 2026 isn't stopping people from building; it's ensuring they don't break the Common Service Data Model (CSDM) and enabling it safely.

What to do now

• Tiered app governance: Use App Engine Management Center (AEMC) to automatically gate apps based on their complexity and data sensitivity.
• Standardize templates: Provide "Certified Building Blocks" so citizen developers don't recreate the wheel for every simple request.

Trend 5: CSDM 5.0 - The foundation for AI

AI amplifies your data quality. If your Configuration Management Database (CMDB) is a "Data Swamp," your AI will provide "hallucinated"and unpredictable solutions. In 2026, CSDM (Common Service Data Model) is the literal map the AI uses to understand your business and is crucial for adoption..

What to do now

• Focus on Service Mapping: AI needs to know which "Application Service" sits on which server to perform automated root-cause analysis.
• Knowledge hygiene: Treat Knowledge Articles as "Training Data." If an article is obsolete, it’s not just "old"—it’s actively damaging your AI’s accuracy.

Trend 6: Demanding value becomes non-negotiable

For platform owners, the biggest trend isn't a new feature. It’s a shift in expectations for their implementation partners. We are going out on a limb on this one, and frankly setting a high bar for ourselves. The era of the "mediocre partner", the one who simply builds what they are told and nothing more is over. In a competitive market, proactivity is the new currency.

We’ve seen the data: partners delivering exactly what was ordered and nothing more is a recipe for losing customers. In 2026, "just enough" is not enough.

We suggest looking for these attributes in a partnership:

• Humble guidance: Having the confidence to suggest a different path, but the humility to do it without being a "besserwisser." It’s about being helpful, not pushy.
• Active listening: Identifying the value customers might otherwise miss by asking the right questions, like: "Is there anything else we can help with?"
• Turning uncertainty into advantage: With many feeling "AI fatigue" or the fear of being left behind, the winning partners are those who provide reassurance and specialized expertise to turn that anxiety into a competitive edge.

We aren't just pointing fingers at the "mediocre guys" here, we're holding ourselves to this five-star standard.

What to do now

• Hold your partner accountable: Ask them: "How can we improve these outcomes beyond just adding more code?"