ServiceNow has given investors a useful counterpoint to the fear that generative AI will simply eat enterprise software. The company reported strong second-quarter results, lifted by subscription growth, large contracts and demand for AI-enabled workflow tools.
Business Insider reported that ServiceNow subscription revenue rose 25 percent year over year to $3.9 billion, while current remaining performance obligations reached $13.2 billion. The company also raised its full-year subscription revenue guidance to as much as $15.78 billion.
That matters because software investors have spent much of the year asking whether AI agents will reduce the need for conventional software seats. If a user can ask an AI tool to do work across apps, the thinking goes, maybe companies need fewer workflow platforms. ServiceNow is trying to answer that by making itself the place where AI work is governed, routed and measured.
CEO Bill McDermott has been pushing the idea of the agentic enterprise, where software does not just host business processes but coordinates human and AI work. ServiceNow says its AI business now has more than $1 billion in annual contract value and that customers with live AI agent deployments have increased ninefold in the past nine months.
MarketWatch also noted momentum in cybersecurity after ServiceNow’s acquisitions of Armis and Veza, with the company talking about real-time management of billions of devices and a future where identity, security and AI governance become part of the same platform.
The point is not that ServiceNow is immune to AI disruption. It is that the company is trying to move into the control layer. If enterprises use many models, many agents and many chips, someone has to manage permissions, approvals, workflows, audit trails and risk. ServiceNow wants that someone to be ServiceNow.
That connects with the wider security and AI-agent trend TechBooky has been following, including the rise of new endpoint and agent-security companies such as Glow. The more AI agents operate inside companies, the more valuable orchestration and oversight become.
ServiceNow still faces pressure. Its stock had fallen sharply this year before the results, and the company must prove that AI consumption pricing can grow without damaging margins. But this quarter gives it a stronger argument: AI may threaten some old software models, but it can also make workflow, identity and governance platforms more important.
Quick take: AI may not kill enterprise software
The ServiceNow story is useful because it challenges a simple assumption: that AI agents will make business software less important. In practice, companies still need workflow systems, audit trails, permissions, security and governance before agents can safely do real work.
Why this matters for CIOs
AI agents need structured business systems to act inside.
Workflow platforms may become the control layer for enterprise AI.
Security, compliance and data governance become more important as automation spreads.
Paul Femi Balo is the founder and publisher of TechBooky. He covers artificial intelligence, African technology, digital infrastructure, enterprise technology and the global digital economy.
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