Knowledge 2025 Session Preview: Taking steps toward an AI future

You’re probably thinking about AI, and if you’re not, just realize your competitor down the road is. Not thinking about AI is like ignoring the internet in the ‘90s. It just doesn’t make sense. 

Actually, we’ll go ahead and say it: You are going to lose.

Both generative and Agentic AI are reshaping manufacturing, and that influence is only accelerating. ServiceNow is already equipping manufacturers with powerful AI capabilities and investing heavily in what’s next. But here’s the reality: no organization can capitalize on today’s breakthroughs or tomorrow’s innovations without strong foundational elements in place.

Crawl…

When it comes to optimization, it’s easy to think about the “penthouse” when you need to first think about the foundation. In ServiceNow, everything starts with the configuration management database (CMDB).  A trusted, sustainable asset inventory across IT and OT environments is non-negotiable. If the CMDB data isn’t strong, there’s no real foundation for automation or advanced AI.

With a solid CMDB foundation in place, there’s an exciting future that has already started combining AI and manufacturing in ServiceNow incident management.

Traditionally, when something goes wrong on a production line, you type up an incident report to get operations back on track, because downtime can cost as much as $25,000 to $30,000 per minute. Without AI, ServiceNow generates the incident report, pulls asset details from the CMDB, creates a task, and waits for a person to deliver the solution.

With AI layered into the process, everything moves even faster. When an incident occurs, ServiceNow identifies the related devices in the CMDB, adds context automatically, and uses generative AI to clean up the description and improve the summary. 

And if the same incident keeps recurring? Generative AI might create a knowledge article, so the next time it happens, it’s easy to find the solution.

Walk…

The next layer: OT rapid response. And it’s already happening.

A ServiceNow incident report is still written up, but now the report is delivered to the correct person with recommended actions on the right side of the ticket in ServiceNow. Agentic AI taps one or more content repositories to recommend detailed remediation steps.

Here’s a real-world example:

CoreX partnered with ServiceNow and NVIDIA to transform the operations of a global luxury automaker. In a single underbody manufacturing cell — one line, one plant, around 100 connected devices, including welders and robots, we ingested every relevant manual and technical document into NVIDIA’s LLM library.

Now, when a spot welder at Site 241 fails and the line shuts down, the operator simply types:

“Spot welder at Site 241 failed. Line down.”

ServiceNow instantly cross-references the metadata in the CMDB, identifying the device owner, manufacturer, and serial number, then uses generative AI to craft an optimized query for NVIDIA’s LLM. Within moments, the operator receives clear, actionable recommendations written in natural language, speeding remediation dramatically.

Run…

Things get even more powerful when ServiceNow and AI agents can tap multiple content databases simultaneously. When an incident report is created, ServiceNow looks at multiple content databases from different sources, finds the best answer, synthesizes the information, and delivers a recommended action three times faster (and more accurately) than before.

Even more advanced: AI will monitor production data in real time to detect incidents as they happen. Instead of users creating incident reports, the platform knows that the spot welder went down, why it went down, and how long it was down. 

It will also generate incident reports that surpass human accuracy.

This idea of the manufacturing environment being self-aware enough to create its incidents is probably a year or two down the road. AI tapping into multiple content databases is happening today. And 10 years down the road? Maybe a fully automated incident process from report to remediation.

It’s an exciting vision, but it can only be realized with the right foundation in place. No foundation, no penthouse.

The future is here. You just need to build it.

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Fritz Byam is CoreX’s Head of Industrial Solutions and will join Hartmut Mueller, Chief Transformation Officer, ServiceNow, and Sri Subramanian, Global Head of Generative AI for Automotive, NVIDIA, onstage at Knowledge 2025 for “Agentic AI in the digital factory: Revolutionizing production and operations” on Wednesday, May 7 at 11:30 AM.