Work and Automation: ServiceNow CEO Bets on Artificial Intelligence
The ServiceNow CEO’s conversation with CNBC revolved around a very clear point: AI agents are already taking on work that used to be done by people. In other words, this is no longer a theoretical debate about the future. It is something that is already happening inside companies using the platform.
In this article, we are going to break down that view in a practical way, staying true to what was said in the original interview while expanding the context. The remarks from Bill McDermott, ServiceNow’s CEO, were featured on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street in May 2026, and the core message is simple: enterprise AI has left the lab and moved into operations, taking over repetitive, standardized activities, especially in service, support, and back-office environments.
The focus here is not to promise magical revolutions, but to show how this technology is changing teams’ daily routines, what types of tasks are shifting to intelligent agents, and how this is impacting the way people work inside companies that are already adopting these solutions.
What the ServiceNow CEO actually said about AI and work
In the CNBC conversation, Bill McDermott reinforced an idea that is starting to echo across the corporate world: AI agents are already taking over part of the work that used to be done manually by employees. This is not some distant forecast or hypothetical scenario. It is reality in companies that use ServiceNow as their workflow platform.
The key point in his remarks is that these agents are not just helping humans but are actually taking a slice of the operational workload, especially in tasks that are:
- Repetitive
- Based on clear rules
- With little room for subjective interpretation
- Heavy on clicks, forms, and system updates
When commenting on this shift, the CEO did not go into deep technical detail in the CNBC segment, but the message was clear: intelligent automation powered by AI is already redistributing the type of work people do inside companies. Instead of spending time only on mechanical execution, the promise is that teams will increasingly focus on supervision, analysis, and decision-making.
Who ServiceNow is and why it matters for the future of work
ServiceNow is a widely used digital workflow platform, especially among large enterprises, mainly to manage IT services, internal support, customer service, and corporate processes in general. It connects requests, approvals, integrations with other systems and, more recently, layers of Artificial Intelligence that help automate decisions.
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When the CEO of a company of this size says on national TV that AI agents are already doing work that would otherwise be done by people, that carries weight because:
- ServiceNow handles critical processes for large organizations.
- The platform sits at the center of IT, support, HR, and service operations.
- It sees huge volumes of workflows across different industries.
In other words, the CEO’s view does not come from a one-off test, but from observing how automation behaves in real-world scenarios, with data from companies around the globe. That gives him a very privileged read on what is happening with digital work today.
How AI agents plug into the workflow
In the ServiceNow ecosystem, so-called intelligent agents act as automated components that plug into workflows companies already have in place. They show up in several ways, including:
- Understanding requests written in natural language (like a chat message or a simple form).
- Creating and classifying tickets automatically.
- Routing requests to the right team without manual triage.
- Suggesting solutions based on previously resolved cases.
What McDermott highlights is that these agents do not just answer simple questions. In many scenarios, they execute end-to-end actions. In an IT workflow, for example, that might mean:
- Identifying that an employee has lost access to a system.
- Checking what permissions they should have.
- Reviewing internal policies stored on the platform.
- Triggering approvals when necessary.
- Automatically applying the access change if everything checks out.
In this kind of case, what used to require dozens of clicks from an analyst is now done by an AI agent, leaving humans more available to deal with non-standard problems, complex incidents, or process improvements.
What tasks AI is taking over
When the CEO says AI has taken on work that would be done by people, he is mostly talking about:
- Triage activities: understanding what the issue is, categorizing it, and deciding where to send it.
- Status updates: moving items through workflow stages, marking tasks as complete, logging timestamps.
- Simple system queries: looking up existing data, pulling history, and assembling a response.
- Standardized actions: password resets, basic access provisioning, automatic notifications.
These tasks do not disappear from the map, but they stop being someone’s direct responsibility. They are moved to a digital agent that runs them continuously, without breaks, based on configured data and rules.
The immediate impact is very tangible:
- Smaller ticket queues for human teams.
- Faster resolution of simple issues.
- Less room for error in highly repetitive processes.
Of course, there is still a need for oversight, fine-tuning, and review of more sensitive cases, but the interview implicitly suggests that a portion of the operational effort has shifted from people to AI.
Partner or replacement: how to see these intelligent agents
One sensitive part of this type of statement is the fear of direct job replacement. In the CNBC segment, the CEO’s tone leans more toward role transformation than immediate, massive job cuts. The underlying idea goes something like this:
- AI takes over the most repetitive, mechanical activities.
- People focus more on analysis, decision-making, relationships, and continuous improvement.
In practice, this means a lot of roles tend to shift in profile. A professional who spent most of the day entering and updating tickets might gradually move into tasks like:
- Adjusting automation rules.
- Tracking metrics generated by the platform.
- Identifying bottlenecks that AI still does not handle well.
- Training new workflows based on what is learned from daily use.
On the other hand, it is hard to ignore that if an AI agent can absorb a large volume of standardized tasks, some teams may end up needing fewer people for the same kind of operational work. That is a point the interview does not dive into, but it is between the lines whenever you talk about work that used to belong to other people.
Cultural impact and changes in how work is measured
When a company starts using more AI automation, it is not only the technology that changes. It also changes how it views performance. Instead of valuing only the person who closes the most tickets manually, the trend is to focus more on those who:
- Help improve end-to-end workflows.
- Can interpret data and suggest meaningful adjustments.
- Spot safe opportunities to apply AI.
- Combine technical understanding with business insight.
In McDermott’s remarks, this shows up indirectly when he points out that AI is now part of everyday operations. Once intelligent agents are embedded in the workflow, doing a good job is no longer just about executing tasks but also about knowing how to work alongside these agents, guiding what they do, correcting them when needed, and making use of what they deliver.
Business areas most affected in the ServiceNow ecosystem
Although the CNBC interview is short, the platform’s context helps explain where AI is gaining the most ground:
- IT and internal support: ticket creation, classification, and initial resolution.
- Customer service: automated answers for frequent questions and smart routing to humans when cases are more complex.
- Back office and operations: system updates, tool integrations, and automatic triggers based on events.
- HR and internal areas: policy queries, request status checks, and standardized internal workflows.
In these environments, the CEO’s comment that agents have taken over work that would be done by other people makes a lot of sense. These are exactly the areas with high volumes of repetitive tasks, where rules can be tightly defined and time savings are easy to measure.
Risks and watchpoints when adopting AI
Even though the CNBC interview leans more optimistic, there are some concerns that always need to be on the radar when you put AI in charge of work that used to be done by humans:
- Quality of automated decisions: if rules are poorly configured, the agent can make the wrong moves at scale.
- Overdependence: handing everything over to automation with minimal oversight can hide problems for a long time.
- Transparency: employees need to understand what is being automated and why, to avoid a climate of mistrust.
- Training: there is no point deploying intelligent agents if teams do not know how to work with them.
These issues do not appear word for word in McDermott’s comments, but they are part of the broader discussion around AI in corporate environments and help balance the productivity narrative with day-to-day responsibility.
What changes for people working in tech and services
For those already working in IT, support, customer service, or operations, the message behind the interview is straightforward: AI is no longer optional in these environments. It is already running, and the trend is for it to spread deeper across workflows.
In practice, this opens the door for a few shifts:
- Less emphasis on purely operational tasks.
- More importance for people who understand end-to-end processes.
- Higher value placed on analysis, communication, and workflow design skills.
- Closer day-to-day work with platforms like ServiceNow itself.
At the same time, the CEO’s interview shows that this transition is no longer in the planning stage: it is happening right now, with agents already in production, taking on work that, just a few years ago, would have automatically landed in a human queue.
Conclusion: AI as digital work infrastructure
Bill McDermott’s appearance on CNBC in May 2026 marks a symbolic moment: within the ServiceNow ecosystem, AI has become part of the work infrastructure. When the CEO states that agents have already taken over activities that would belong to other people, he is calling out a very practical shift in how companies run day-to-day operations.
This change does not, by itself, mean the end of human work, but it does redraw what each person does, which roles gain traction, and what types of skills are more valued. The real divide is not between humans and machines, but between organizations that know how to use this combination well and those stuck in old models, full of manual steps that could be safely automated.
In the end, the takeaway is simple: Artificial Intelligence is now firmly part of corporate routine, especially on workflow platforms like ServiceNow. People working close to these processes are already feeling, in practice, what it means to share the workday with intelligent agents that are gradually taking over the kind of tasks no one is really going to miss doing manually.
