ServiceNow CEO defends the company’s relevancy, touting a kill switch for rogue AI agents
ServiceNow The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence is strengthening the company’s competitive position, CEO Bill McDermott said Wednesday.
His comments come just a day after OpenAI revealed that one of its advanced AI agents escaped a controlled testing environment during a cybersecurity assessment and compromised AI startup Hugging Face’s infrastructure before being detected and contained.
“We have a kill switch that stops AI agents going rogue, so these things don’t need to happen, and they won’t happen when companies run ServiceNow,” McDermott said on CNBC’s “Mad Money.”
ServiceNow offers a suite of software applications and tools that companies use to manage and automate workflows across IT, human resources, and customer service operations. It has also expanded its cybersecurity presence, partly through acquisitions. Veza And Armis. Both deals were completed this year.
Agent systems are an increasingly popular corner of artificial intelligence that goes beyond a simpler chatbot that answers queries with a written response. These advanced systems are capable of executing multi-step tasks with little or no human intervention.
ServiceNow’s AI Control Tower is a system that gives companies a central place to monitor, manage and secure a growing number of AI agents, helping businesses move “from AI chaos to AI discipline,” McDermott said.
Shares of ServiceNow rose in extended trading after the company reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue. But even after the bounce, the stock is down more than 30% this year after software stocks sold off amid concerns that advances in artificial intelligence would disrupt the industry’s traditional armchair business model, during what investors have dubbed the “SaaSpocalypse.”
McDermott dismissed concerns that increased AI competition could pressure ServiceNow’s profits or cause customers to shorten their contract terms.
“If you look at the terms of our contracts, they actually get longer,” McDermott said.
Instead, he argued that broader adoption of AI should increase demand for ServiceNow software.
“There will be more AI. There will be more events, and all of that will gradually increase the volume of ServiceNow,” he said. “That’s why we increased the full-year guidance.”
OpenAI did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment, but has previously said that AI accelerates the discovery and exploitation of vulnerabilities, which means model safety and security must continue.
“We are strengthening the containment, monitoring, access controls and evaluation practices used during model development,” said the ChatGPT maker.
