\(Legacy\) Exploring Natural Language Understanding

concept brazil Updated Sep 10, 2026 1 min read nlu-explore.md

ServiceNow® Natural Language Understanding (NLU) provides an NLU Workbench and an NLU inference service that you can use to enable the system to learn and respond to human-expressed intent. By entering natural language examples into the system, you help it understand word meanings and contexts so it can infer user or system actions.

Natural Language Understanding overview

Starting with the Brazil release, Natural Language Understanding is being prepared for future deprecation. It will be hidden and no longer activated on new instances but will continue to be supported. For details, see the Deprecation Process [KB0867184] article in the Now Support knowledge base.

Natural Language Understanding (NLU) is a component of artificial intelligence natural-language processing that deals with machine-reading comprehension. Predictive Intelligence uses NLU so the system can understand word meanings and word contexts to infer user or system actions..

Natural Language Understanding benefits

Benefit	Feature	Users
Use the NLU Workbench to create models for Virtual Agent and AI Search.	NLU Workbench	NLU Administrator
Build the model's content by adding intents, entities, vocabulary, and test set utterances. Your NLU model content determines how the model responds to user inputs.	Model Management	NLU Administrator
Add a language to an existing NLU model by translating it. Use one of several translation options to add a secondary model in a supported language.	Model Management	NLU Administrator
Virtual Agent administrators can access and update their NLU models from within the Virtual Agent Designer user interface.	Virtual Agent Integration	Virtual Agent Administrator

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---
title: \(Legacy\) Exploring Natural Language Understanding
description: ServiceNow Natural Language Understanding \(NLU\) provides an NLU Workbench and an NLU inference service that you can use to enable the system to learn and respond to human-expressed intent. By entering natural language examples into the system, you help it understand word meanings and contexts so it can infer user or system actions.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/intelligent-experiences/nlu-service/nlu-explore.html
release: brazil
product: NLU Service
classification: nlu-service
topic_type: concept
last_updated: "2026-09-10"
reading_time_minutes: 1
breadcrumb: [\(Legacy\) Natural Language Understanding, Machine learning and natural language capabilities, Enable AI Experiences]
---

# \(Legacy\) Exploring Natural Language Understanding

ServiceNow® Natural Language Understanding \(NLU\) provides an NLU Workbench and an NLU inference service that you can use to enable the system to learn and respond to human-expressed intent. By entering natural language examples into the system, you help it understand word meanings and contexts so it can infer user or system actions.

## Natural Language Understanding overview

Starting with the Brazil release, Natural Language Understanding is being prepared for future deprecation. It will be hidden and no longer activated on new instances but will continue to be supported. For details, see the [Deprecation Process \[KB0867184\]](https://support.servicenow.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0867184) article in the Now Support knowledge base.

Natural Language Understanding \(NLU\) is a component of artificial intelligence natural-language processing that deals with machine-reading comprehension. Predictive Intelligence uses NLU so the system can understand word meanings and word contexts to infer user or system actions..

## Natural Language Understanding benefits

|Benefit|Feature|Users|
|-------|-------|-----|
|Use the NLU Workbench to create models for Virtual Agent and AI Search.|NLU Workbench|NLU Administrator|
|Build the model's content by adding intents, entities, vocabulary, and test set utterances. Your NLU model content determines how the model responds to user inputs.|Model Management|NLU Administrator|
|Add a language to an existing NLU model by translating it. Use one of several translation options to add a secondary model in a supported language.|Model Management|NLU Administrator|
|Virtual Agent administrators can access and update their NLU models from within the Virtual Agent Designer user interface.|Virtual Agent Integration|Virtual Agent Administrator|