Notes from Knowledge 2025: AI as the enterprise central nervous system

At ServiceNow’s Knowledge 2025, CEO Bill McDermott outlined a pivotal moment in enterprise technology. With a clear emphasis on AI’s role in transforming operations, he described the shift as a defining opportunity for organizations navigating the next era of digital evolution. 

"AI is civilization’s greatest opportunity in this sector,” McDermott stated, calling it both a “gateway to prosperity” and an essential element of long-term business viability. His enthusiasm was infectious, and looking around the room, attendees could be seen leaning forward, taking in every word.

As someone who's watched enterprise software evolve over decades, I was struck by ServiceNow's clear positioning as "the central nervous system of the 21st-century enterprise." McDermott cited ServiceNow’s scale, referencing over 65 billion workflows and 4 trillion automated transactions as indicators of the platform’s real-time operational impact.

A Problem Worth Solving

Enterprise IT continues to struggle with fragmented systems, siloed data, outdated infrastructure, and inconsistent workflows. McDermott acknowledged the global cost of inefficiency, impacting an estimated 7% of GDP, and positioned ServiceNow’s approach as a consolidation of data, automation, and governance into a single platform.

Introducing the AI Control Tower

One of the most practical announcements was the launch of ServiceNow’s AI Control Tower, a centralized interface for governing AI agents across the enterprise. Designed to manage digital agents much like employees, it includes tools for onboarding, performance tracking, and oversight.

When Jensen Huang made his appearance on stage, he brought credibility to the vision. The NVIDIA CEO highlighted what makes intelligent agents work: they need to understand content, reason effectively, and work seamlessly with other agents. Rather than conceptual hype, Huang provided a structured framework for deploying intelligent agents, focusing on content comprehension, reasoning capabilities, and multi-agent collaboration.

Driving Enterprise AI Innovation

We regularly hear about customers throughout the world implementing ServiceNow’s AI strategy at scale. The establishment of a dedicated Agent AI Lab in Latin America, staffed by 30 specialists, reflects a commitment to developing deployable agent frameworks and region-specific use cases.

This commitment to practical implementation acknowledges an important market reality: adoption readiness varies significantly by region. Latin American enterprises have demonstrated particular eagerness to embrace forward-thinking AI implementations, sometimes even moving more aggressively than their North American counterparts to capitalize on these technologies.

To cite our own work, in collaboration with ServiceNow, NVIDIA, and a luxury automotive manufacturer, we contributed to a deployment that monitors assembly-line activity in real time. Environmental data is analyzed, and NVIDIA’s language model generates immediate, actionable insights for frontline workers, minimizing downtime and increasing production resilience.

Evolution in Progress

McDermott emphasized that this is not an overnight shift but part of a broader technological evolution. He described the AI transformation as “bigger than the internet, mobile, and cloud combined,” which is a claim underscoring the scale of enterprise change. 

Walking out of the session, I found myself nodding along. ServiceNow appears to be making the right moves to position itself as a key platform in the AI ecosystem, and one that helps govern and optimize AI functionality across complex enterprise environments.

For those of us who've spent careers trying to make enterprise software deliver on its promises, the presentation offered a practical perspective on how AI might help address the challenges we've been wrestling with for decades.

--

Stay tuned to CoreX Insights throughout the week for regular updates from #KNOW2025 in Las Vegas!