ServiceNow reconfigures its ecosystem to build out workflows enabled by GenAI

The race for mindshare on GenAI is as mindboggling as the discussions themselves. Every person and their dog is publishing press releases on intended investments in GenAI, often claiming several billions of dollars in earmarked investments. While ServiceNow is rarely shy to deploy marketing hyperbole, three partnership announcements in a row with Cognizant, Accenture, and KPMG indicate a new dynamic within the always-enthusiastic ServiceNow ecosystem.

We see two intertwined developments. First, ServiceNow is driving a new set of partnerships around horizontal topics like automation and AI. Second, there is an acceleration of new ecosystem engagements where ServiceNow partners with other technology providers and services providers as the ecosystem pivots from implementation to transformation.

The partnership announcements were akin to waiting for a London bus—you’re waiting for one, and three show up. Let’s assess the details:

• Cognizant: Cognizant was first out of the blocks, announcing a new partnership leveraging its AI-led Cognizant Neuro platform suite to accelerate clients’ transformation journeys and generate a $1 billion business with ServiceNow. Cognizant is meant to be the lead launch partner for end-to-end observability solutions for cloud applications across industries.
• Accenture: Together with Nvidia and ServiceNow, Accenture will launch Lighthouse, designed to fast-track enterprise GenAI capability development and adoption. The goal is a comprehensive offering enabling customers to collaborate as design partners for architecting custom GenAI large language models (LLMs) and applications.
• KPMG: With KPMG, ServiceNow aims to transform finance, supply chain, and procurement operations, with ServiceNow contributing its AI-powered finance and supply chain workflows.

ServiceNow drives a new breed of horizontal partnerships

First, ServiceNow pushed hard on industry solutions with selective launch partners. The strategy for ServiceNow is to design new capabilities and then have a launch partner to enhance those offerings and commit to a joint business plan. Deloitte was the launch partner for banking, while Accenture chose telecommunications. Eventually, more partners will add differentiated capabilities. We also see a different push around more horizontal capabilities like automation and AI. For AI, ServiceNow intends to build out knowledge- and workload-specific LLMs.

Cognizant is not the most obvious choice for such a partnership on automation and AI, as it has fallen behind in the ServiceNow pecking order. Its Linium acquisition did not provide the cultural change and reinvigoration of its ServiceNow practice it had anticipated. While Cognizant is talking up aiming to provide observability-as-a-service as a central element of this partnership, ServiceNow appears delighted by the personal commitment of Ravi Kumar, Cognizant’s newly anointed CEO. Compared to those more high-profile announcements, KPMG’s intent to leverage ServiceNow’s GenAI capabilities to transform supply-chain engagements was somewhat marginalized.

Emerging ecosystems outline new ambitions

HFS called out the pivot from implementation to transformation in our ServiceNow Services Horizons study. As part of this pivot, we see new ServiceNow ecosystem engagements, including service providers and tech platforms like Celonis, AppDynamics, and Dynatrace. While aspirational, those ecosystems plan to address requirements such as ERP modernization and cloud operations. With GenAI’s acceleration, we see equally aspirational ecosystems around Nvidia and Hugging Face. As Accenture is always investing ahead of the market, it is a less surprising choice to drive synergies from GenAI infrastructure to applications to services.

The Bottom Line: Beyond CEO Bill McDermott’s marketing magic, ServiceNow is investing in the ecosystems of the future—operations leaders, take note.

Bill McDermott, ServiceNow’s flamboyant CEO, is one of the most skilled operators at influencing investors. Behind this effective veneer, in stark contrast, ServiceNow’s release management is much more measured. While ServiceNow has consistently invested in automation and AI, the committed use cases of each release cycle are not confusing its customers. As such, all three partnerships are aspirational.

However, in our view, the tie-up between ServiceNow, Nvidia, and Accenture provides a blueprint for an emerging ecosystem beyond the specifics of ServiceNow. The likes of Nvidia, Hugging Face, and Databricks offer foundational GenAI capabilities and will become the cornerstones of a new flush of ecosystems with the intent to integrate data and AI to deliver innovative outcomes.

Operations leaders should evaluate these expanding capabilities but incorporate them into their broader GenAI strategies as the market rapidly evolves. Those new partnerships will go far beyond obvious use cases, like co-pilots and code creation, by driving broader transformational outcomes. Stay tuned for HFS’ inaugural assessment of service providers’ GenAI capabilities; it will go broader and deeper on all those issues!