Every ServiceNow Sales & Partner Kickoff (SKO) offers a glimpse into what’s next. This year, it offered something more powerful: clarity.
Before heading into SKO, Ondaro’s leadership team aligned on a core question we hear from customers every day: How do organizations move from AI ambition to real, measurable outcomes? The conversations, strategy and platform advances unveiled at SKO didn’t just reinforce that question; they answered it.
What emerged was a clear signal that ServiceNow has moved beyond a feature set. They have architected an enterprise platform where AI is native, governed, and operational across every business function — a fundamental shift that redefines what enterprise transformation looks like in 2026 and beyond.
And that changes everything.
From Probabilistic AI to Deterministic Enterprise Outcomes
One of the strongest themes coming out of SKO was ServiceNow’s evolution from AI experimentation to AI execution at enterprise scale. The platform’s maturity centers on enabling organizations to act autonomously – moving beyond insight generation and agentic AI to autonomous workflows that can sense context, decide the right action, and execute across the enterprise.
The distinction is critical. As Stephanie Otto, Senior VP, GlobalPartnerships, Alliances, Strategy & Innovation at Ondaro observed, “There are a lot of AI solutions in the market; however, to succeed, companies need not only the probabilistic intelligence of AI, but they also need the deterministic controls of enterprise workflows and a platform that can govern any AI, integrate any data and automate any process. That’s where ServiceNow is separating itself.”
Otto's insight cuts to the heart of why so many AI initiatives fail to scale. Probabilistic AI models deliver intelligence, but without deterministic workflow controls, governance frameworks, and deep enterprise integration, that intelligence remains isolated — unable to drive measurable business value. ServiceNow's architecture addresses this gap by unifying AI capabilities with the workflow fabric that powers mission-critical operations.
Platform Differentiation: The AI Control Tower Architecture
Several platform advancements showcased at SKO underscore ServiceNow's strategic differentiation:
- Now Assist Evolution: The platform's AI capabilities have matured beyond textual responses to dynamically generated, contextually aware content across IT, HR, Customer Service, and enterprise operations. Now Assist can now deliver experiences that understand business context and user intent.
- The AI Control Tower: This is one of the most strategically significant innovations — a unified governance layer providing a single pane of glass to manage, optimize, and secure AI across any platform, any data source, and any workflow. For enterprises navigating a complex AI landscape with disparate tools and governance gaps, the Control Tower opens the door for enterprise-wide AI enablement.
- Workflow Data Fabric (WDF) and RaptorDB: Workflow Data Fabric is able to connect data across the enterprise. It doesn't just connect to 200+ systems like SAP and Salesforce — it contextualizes that data in real-time with Zero Copy Connectors, eliminating data movement latency. RaptorDB powers this fabric with 43% faster transactions and 27x faster analytics, creating the performance foundation required for real time autonomous operations.
- Moveworks & EmployeeWorks: The union of Moveworks consumer grade experience and with ServiceNow creates EmployeeWorks, a conversational interface that instantly understand, reason, and surfaces only what requires human attention — allowing employees to focus on strategic work while AI handles operational complexity.
- Crawl: Establish quick wins using existing Now Assist capabilities, building organizational confidence and demonstrating immediate value.
- Walk: Build trust through measurable outcomes while addressing foundational requirements — data quality, governance frameworks, and change management infrastructure.
- Run: Deploy agentic workflows once governance, data, and organizational readiness reach maturity.
- Fly: Scale autonomous operations across the enterprise with full confidence in governance, security, and business alignment.
- Payers are exploring AI-driven claims optimization to reduce processing costs while improving accuracy and member satisfaction
- Life Sciences are applying AI across clinical trials and business operations, accelerating time to market while maintaining regulatory compliance
- Providers are prioritizing AI governance frameworks, operational efficiency, and autonomous IT operations — all for patient care.
The Strategic Adoption Framework: Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly
ServiceNow's guidance on AI adoption revealed a pragmatic understanding of enterprise transformation realities. Rather than encouraging customers to leap directly into agentic AI, the framework acknowledges that sustainable transformation requires methodical progression:
This approach aligns with Ondaro’s experience in the market, especially in highly regulated industries like Healthcare & Life Sciences, Financial Services and Manufacturing.
“Flying is the goal and every organization should be working toward it,” said Jeff Gregory, CEO, Ondaro. “But in these industries, you earn that by being purposeful at every stage. Governance, data quality, compliance readiness. These are not obstacles to speed. They are what make speed possible. The organizations that get there are the ones starting now and building it right.”
Gregory's perspective reflects decades of enterprise transformation experience. Organizations that rush AI deployment without addressing governance, data quality, and organizational readiness inevitably face setbacks. Those that follow a disciplined progression build a sustainable competitive advantage.
Governance as Strategic Accelerator
A recurring misconception addressed at SKO was that governance slows innovation. The opposite is proving true in enterprise environments
The AI Control Tower reframes governance from a compliance checkbox to an enabling foundation for speed, trust, and scale. When security, compliance, and transparency are architected into the platform rather than bolted on, enterprises can move faster through high-risk environments.
For organizations navigating geopolitical uncertainty, constrained budgets, and intensifying regulatory scrutiny, robust governance isn’t optional, it’s the prerequisite for board level approval and enterprise-wide adoption
As Otto noted in her SKO observations, the market is saturated with AI point solutions. What separates transformative outcomes from failed pilots is the governance infrastructure that enables AI to operate at enterprise scale with appropriate controls, auditability, and risk management.
Industry Verticalization: From Generic AI to Business Specific Outcomes
ServiceNow’s expanded focus on industry-specific solutions reflect a mature understanding of enterprise buying dynamics. Customers don’t purchase generic AI capabilities, they purchase outcomes that map directly to their business language, regulatory landscape, and operational realities.
For example, in Healthcare, where Ondaro maintains a deep domain expertise, the verticalization is evident:
Across every industry vertical, the message was consistent: value must be immediate, measurable, and relevant to lines of business, not confined to IT experimentation.
“AI only matters when it shows up in the language your business already speaks,” Gregory emphasized. “If it does not connect directly to the outcomes your industry cares about, it is not a strategy. It is a science project. That is what we build for every customer. Their outcomes, their language, their reality.”
This industry-specific approach is where Ondaro's value proposition aligns precisely with ServiceNow's platform evolution — combining vertical expertise with platform capability to accelerate time to value.
What This Means for Customers and Partners
SKO made one strategic imperative abundantly clear: ServiceNow has raised the bar for enterprise AI - and the ecosystem must rise with accordingly.
For customers, this means accelerating time to value with AI that is embedded, governed, and actionable on a single platform architected to scale with their organizational ambitions. The window for competitive advantage through AI adoption is narrowing — first movers with strong governance foundations will capture disproportionate value.
For partners, it represents both a call to action and an opportunity. Success requires deepening industry expertise, sharpening value narratives beyond technical implementation, and engaging earlier in strategic conversations stakeholders. Partners who position as strategic advisors rather than implementation vendors will lead.
At Ondaro, we view this evolution as precisely aligned with our mission: Helping customers move with confidence. By combining ServiceNow’s rapidly advancing platform with proven methodologies and deep vertical expertise, we enable organization to achieve sustainable outcome-driven transformation.
The Path Forward: From Ambition to Execution
SKO 2026 wasn’t merely about product launches or feature announcements. It showed what's possible when enterprise platforms evolve beyond tools to become strategic infrastructure for business transformation.
AI is not running on ServiceNow – its running through ServiceNow, embedded into every workflow, governed by enterprise controls and delivering measurable outcomes across every business function.
The future of enterprise transformation isn't approaching — it's already here, and it's moving fast. The question is no longer whether to adopt AI, but whether organizations have the platform foundation, governance discipline, and strategic partnerships to capture its full value.
