Chatting with AI
ServiceNow Otto is the conversational AI experience across the ServiceNow AI Platform. ServiceNow Otto provides a natural language interface that makes it easier to look for information, complete a task, get help with work, or interact with AI-powered experiences.
ServiceNow Otto is the new name for experiences previously known as Now Assist, including ServiceNow Otto for Virtual Agent and the ServiceNow Otto panel. The underlying capabilities remain the same, with a unified brand and user experience across the platform.
ServiceNow Otto for Virtual Agent
ServiceNow Otto for Virtual Agent brings generative and agentic AI capabilities to self-service conversations. It helps employees and customers find information, complete requests, and resolve issues through natural language interactions. The experience combines traditional Virtual Agent conversations with large language models (LLMs), enabling more flexible, intelligent, and human-like interactions. Users can ask questions in their own words and receive answers grounded in enterprise knowledge, service catalog content, AI Search results, and configured conversational topics. New premium chat experiences provide a unified search and chat interface, allowing users to move seamlessly from asking questions to taking action.
Chat experiences in ServiceNow Otto for Virtual Agent are defined in assistants, which define the AI experience that users interact with. Depending on your needs, you can have different assistants for internal users, customers, and specific teams. The assistant can maintain context across multiple questions, provide personalized responses when configured, and guide users through tasks without requiring them to navigate multiple pages or applications. Admins can create assistants in Assistant Designer.
[Omitted image "nava-portal-screen.png"] Alt text: Full-page view of the premium chat portal.
For more information, see Assistants and conversations in Assistant Designer and Premium chat.
ServiceNow Otto panel
The ServiceNow Otto panel is a conversational AI companion that is available across the ServiceNow AI Platform. The panel provides users with a centralized place to interact with AI while they work and is accessible from the ServiceNow Otto icon [Omitted image "now-assist-sparkle-icon.png"] Alt text: in the platform navigation.
Unlike ServiceNow Otto for Virtual Agent, which is focused on self-service conversations and customer or employee interactions, the ServiceNow Otto panel assists users directly within the context of their work. It detects where users are in the platform and can provide contextual assistance, helping them complete tasks more efficiently. Fulfillers can summarize a chat, case, or incident, get contextual help, or generate resolution notes directly within their workspace. Requesters interact with the panel through service portals where AI Search, Virtual Agent topics, and catalog recommendations come together. Learning the distinction between the fulfiller experience and the requestor experience is important for configuration. Each experience has different configuration options, available skills, and activation requirements.
The panel's premium chat experience brings together AI chat, search, file uploads, and multi-step AI-assisted tasks in a single interface. Users can search organizational knowledge, interact with records, and perform work without switching between multiple tools or applications.
The ServiceNow Otto panel experience has an assistant of its own where admins can configure it in Assistant Designer. For more information, see Configure assistants overview.
For more information about the panel, see ServiceNow Otto panel and Premium chat.
Parent Topic:Creating AI user experiences
--- title: Chatting with AI description: ServiceNow Otto is the conversational AI experience across the ServiceNow AI Platform. ServiceNow Otto provides a natural language interface that makes it easier to look for information, complete a task, get help with work, or interact with AI-powered experiences. locale: en-US canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/intelligent-experiences/platai-otto-panel-va-chat.html release: australia topic_type: concept last_updated: "2026-09-10" reading_time_minutes: 3 breadcrumb: [Creating AI user experiences, Enable AI Experiences] --- # Chatting with AI ServiceNow Otto is the conversational AI experience across the ServiceNow AI Platform. ServiceNow Otto provides a natural language interface that makes it easier to look for information, complete a task, get help with work, or interact with AI-powered experiences. ServiceNow Otto is the new name for experiences previously known as Now Assist, including ServiceNow Otto for Virtual Agent and the ServiceNow Otto panel. The underlying capabilities remain the same, with a unified brand and user experience across the platform. ## ServiceNow Otto for Virtual Agent ServiceNow Otto for Virtual Agent brings generative and agentic AI capabilities to self-service conversations. It helps employees and customers find information, complete requests, and resolve issues through natural language interactions. The experience combines traditional Virtual Agent conversations with large language models \(LLMs\), enabling more flexible, intelligent, and human-like interactions. Users can ask questions in their own words and receive answers grounded in enterprise knowledge, service catalog content, AI Search results, and configured conversational topics. New premium chat experiences provide a unified search and chat interface, allowing users to move seamlessly from asking questions to taking action. Chat experiences in ServiceNow Otto for Virtual Agent are defined in assistants, which define the AI experience that users interact with. Depending on your needs, you can have different assistants for internal users, customers, and specific teams. The assistant can maintain context across multiple questions, provide personalized responses when configured, and guide users through tasks without requiring them to navigate multiple pages or applications. Admins can create assistants in Assistant Designer. \[Omitted image "nava-portal-screen.png"\] Alt text: Full-page view of the premium chat portal. For more information, see [Assistants and conversations in Assistant Designer](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/intelligent-experiences/platai-assistant-designer.md) and [Premium chat](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/conversational-interfaces/nava-integrated-chat.md). ## ServiceNow Otto panel The ServiceNow Otto panel is a conversational AI companion that is available across the ServiceNow AI Platform. The panel provides users with a centralized place to interact with AI while they work and is accessible from the ServiceNow Otto icon \[Omitted image "now-assist-sparkle-icon.png"\] Alt text: in the platform navigation. Unlike ServiceNow Otto for Virtual Agent, which is focused on self-service conversations and customer or employee interactions, the ServiceNow Otto panel assists users directly within the context of their work. It detects where users are in the platform and can provide contextual assistance, helping them complete tasks more efficiently. Fulfillers can summarize a chat, case, or incident, get contextual help, or generate resolution notes directly within their workspace. Requesters interact with the panel through service portals where AI Search, Virtual Agent topics, and catalog recommendations come together. Learning the distinction between the fulfiller experience and the requestor experience is important for configuration. Each experience has different configuration options, available skills, and activation requirements. The panel's premium chat experience brings together AI chat, search, file uploads, and multi-step AI-assisted tasks in a single interface. Users can search organizational knowledge, interact with records, and perform work without switching between multiple tools or applications. The ServiceNow Otto panel experience has an assistant of its own where admins can configure it in Assistant Designer. For more information, see [Configure assistants overview](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/conversational-interfaces/configure-now-assist-va.md). For more information about the panel, see [ServiceNow Otto panel](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/intelligent-experiences/now-assist-panel-overview.md) and [Premium chat](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/intelligent-experiences/now-assist-panel-premium.md). **Parent Topic:**[Creating AI user experiences](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/intelligent-experiences/platai-creating-ai-user-experiences.md)
| title | Chatting with AI |
| description | ServiceNow Otto is the conversational AI experience across the ServiceNow AI Platform. ServiceNow Otto provides a natural language interface that makes it easier to look for information, complete a task, get help with work, or interact with AI-powered experiences. |
| locale | en-US |
| canonical_url | https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/intelligent-experiences/platai-otto-panel-va-chat.html |
| release | australia |
| topic_type | concept |
| last_updated | 2026-09-10 |
| reading_time_minutes | 3 |
| breadcrumb | Creating AI user experiencesEnable AI Experiences |