According to Forbes, ServiceNow reported strong fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results on January 28, with subscription revenue hitting $3.47 billion for Q4 (up 21% year-over-year) and $12.88 billion for the full year. Key metrics like current remaining performance obligations (cRPO) grew 25% to $12.85 billion, signaling strong future demand. The company’s AI assistant, Now Assist, crossed $600 million in annual contract value (ACV) in Q4 and is on track for a $1 billion run rate in 2026. President and COO Amit Zavery credited a unified AI platform and operational efficiencies for the outperformance, while also highlighting expanded partnerships with Anthropic, Fiserv, and Panasonic Avionics to embed AI into specific vertical workflows.
The AI workflow advantage
Here’s the thing about enterprise AI: everyone’s selling it, but almost no one can prove it’s moving the needle on revenue. ServiceNow‘s numbers suggest it might be one of the few that can. The secret sauce isn’t just having a chatbot or a copilot. It’s baking AI directly into the boring, critical workflows companies already run on—IT tickets, HR onboarding, customer service cases. When AI automates 89% of a support workflow, as ServiceNow claims it can, that’s not a pilot. That’s production. And that’s why deals over $1 million ACV for Now Assist nearly tripled last quarter. Large, regulated enterprises in finance and healthcare aren’t buying science projects; they’re buying a governed system that works.
Partnerships over point solutions
ServiceNow’s strategy is interesting because it’s not trying to build every AI model itself. Instead, it’s turning its platform into a hub. Bringing in Anthropic’s Claude for secure coding, working with OpenAI on voice AI, embedding with Fiserv for financial ops—these aren’t just press release partnerships. They’re about giving customers “choice with control,” as Zavery put it. For a company serving 85% of the S&P 500, that’s crucial. These giants have legacy systems, specific compliance needs, and they hate vendor lock-in. An open platform that can orchestrate across different LLMs and clouds is a compelling answer. But it also adds complexity, which is a double-edged sword.
The scale vs. simplicity battle
And that’s where the real challenge lies. ServiceNow is winning at the high end of the market, but its breadth and power come with a cost—literally and figuratively. The learning curve is steep, customization can be heavy, and the price tag is significant. This opens a door for competitors like Freshservice or Jira Service Management, who are pitching faster, simpler, and cheaper AI for the mid-market. They’re winning on time-to-value. So the question becomes: can ServiceNow simplify its own platform fast enough, or will it cede the middle ground while dominating the top? Their internal use of AI to save $350 million in costs is a good story, but they need to translate that into easier onboarding for their customers.
The road ahead and the risks
Looking ahead, ServiceNow is guiding to the high end of 20% growth for 2026, which is impressive for a company of its size. The shift to a hybrid pricing model—mixing traditional seats with consumption-based AI usage—is smart and seems to be working. But the landscape is getting noisier. Microsoft is pushing Copilot everywhere, Salesforce is all-in on Einstein, and everyone has an AI story now. ServiceNow’s counter is that it’s the unified orchestration layer, the “AI Control Tower” for the enterprise. That’s a powerful vision, especially as boardrooms get nervous about AI risk. But executing on that vision means successfully integrating acquisitions like Moveworks and the upcoming Armis and Veza deals, all while keeping the platform from becoming a Frankenstein’s monster of legacy code and third-party models. They’ve built a formidable lead, but the race is far from over.
