ServiceNow acquires Intellibot to enter the RPA market

ServiceNow continues its wave of acquisitions of artificial intelligence companies, this time in cooperation with the robotic process automation supplier Intellibot.

The main purpose of Intellibot’s RPA technology is to help users automate repetitive tasks. As it will be integrated into the ServiceNow platform, users will be able to integrate modern and legacy systems, enriching ServiceNow and third-party existing machine learning and artificial intelligence tools.

In explaining ServiceNow’s decision to enter the RPA market now, Josh Kahn, Senior Vice President of Workflow Products for ServiceNow Creators, said that the company has worked closely with large organizations to build a digital transformation platform. These organizations are increasingly creating teams dedicated to building applications for RPA.

“Now we often see a team called’automation team’ combining low-code and RPA platforms,” ​​Kahn said. “In the past, we worked well with pure RPA vendors, but many customers told us that they wanted a platform that combined low code, virtual agents, machine learning, and RPA into one package.”

An analyst believes that considering ServiceNow’s recent four or five AI-based acquisitions, it makes sense to enter the RPA market.

When you think of Element AI trading with other AIs, [Intellibot] It is a good extension. Considering their existing workflow automation and analysis models, they need some type of robotic process automation capabilities,” said Stephen Elliot, IDC’s Vice President of DevOps and Management Software Practice. “And it fits their no-code/low-code approach. “

Through this acquisition, ServiceNow is seeking to establish a competitive advantage, not just integrating the different parts that make up the core of the ServiceNow platform. They also added many features that can compete independently, such as analysis.

“Essentially, they are trying to transform their platform from a set of different seeds with artificial intelligence capabilities to a set of oak trees that can grow on their own, thereby creating more value for users,” he said.

When asked whether ServiceNow would consider selling Intellibot products as standalone products, Kahn stated that the company’s goal is to make them an integral part of the ServiceNow platform, rather than trying to become a pure RPA game. Companies can gain more competitive advantages by building an integrated platform. He added that ServiceNow’s internal RPA team will work hand in hand with Intellibot developers in India to provide joint products.

«If our customers have many processes already automated [por otro proveedor], We can provide the ServiceNow platform and call these robots like any other external system,” Kahn said. “In this way, the Intellibot team will consider their traditional competitors less and start to think more about what we are building together s solution. “

Given the characteristics of the latest ServiceNow platform (called Quebec) launched last week, the timing of Intellibot’s acquisition may be accidental. This product is specifically aimed at business users who want to use low-code products to complete digital transformation projects faster. According to the company, Intellibot will supplement some of Quebec’s capabilities by extending ServiceNow’s existing artificial intelligence and machine learning, virtual agent, and low-code development capabilities.

ServiceNow also plans to build two new data centers in India, which are scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2022. The new center will become part of ServiceNow’s high-availability architecture and support the scalability of the company’s cloud service business. The company said it expects to double the number of its employees in India in the next two to three years.

The Intellibot acquisition is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2021. Financial terms were not disclosed.

As the editor-in-chief of the TechTarget news group, Ed Scannell is responsible for writing and reporting breaking news, news analysis, and special reports focusing on technology topics and trends affecting corporate IT professionals. He also worked at Infoworld and Computerworld for 26 years, covering enterprise-level products and technologies from large IT companies such as IBM and Microsoft, and served as the Redmond editor for three years, overseeing the editorial content of the magazine.