Assistant Designer interface reference

The Assistant Designer interface lets you create, modify, test, publish, and localize topics, topic blocks, and custom controls.

Assistant Designer provides the following views. Some tabs may not be available, depending on how you configured your instance or the type of topic you are working with.

Assistant Designer Asset library
The Assistant Designer Asset library page lists all LLM assets and NLU/Keyword topics for Virtual Agent conversations. You can also create more topics, subflows, actions, custom skills, AI agents, and agentic workflows.
Create a topic form
The Create a topic form is used to set the properties for a new conversational topic for Virtual Agent.
Topic Properties tab
Use the Topic Properties tab to identify a topic and how it's used. You can control who uses the topic and what channels it can run in.
Topic Flow tab
Use the topic Flow tab to build the conversation flow. Use the controls for user inputs, bot responses, and utilities to define the flow.
Assistant Designer controls
A Virtual Agent topic consists of a collection of controls within a topic flow. Use these controls to collect, process, and present information to your users. Controls can also read, create, and update records on your instance.
Assistant Designer user input controls
Use the collection of input controls provided by Assistant Designer to prompt and capture information from the user in a conversation.
Assistant Designer bot responses
Assistant Designer offers various controls for displaying bot responses in a conversation. Because the bot responses occur in third-party platforms, the format for each output may vary.
Assistant Designer utilities
You can control interactions within a topic by using utilities in Assistant Designer. These utilities perform various actions such as adding topic blocks (reusable components), running a script, or adding different conversation paths (branches) in a topic. Utilities are represented as nodes in a conversation flow but do not display anything to the user.
Assistant Designer capabilities
Add in-depth functions to Virtual Agent conversations with Assistant Designer capabilities. These controls provide special filters and abilities to your Virtual Agent topics.

Parent Topic:Virtual Agent reference

title	Assistant Designer interface reference
description	The Assistant Designer interface lets you create, modify, test, publish, and localize topics, topic blocks, and custom controls.
locale	en-US
canonical_url	https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/conversational-interfaces/virtual-agent/vad-reference.html
release	australia
product	Virtual Agent
classification	virtual-agent
topic_type	concept
last_updated	2026-09-10
reading_time_minutes	1
breadcrumb	ReferenceVirtual AgentConversational Interfaces