ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott (pictured) claimed the vendor’s partner ecosystem has “never been more invested than they are right now” as he unveiled an expectation-topping set of Q2 results.
The cloud-based workflow automation specialist saw subscription revenues swell by a quarter year-on-year to $2.08bn in the three months to 30 June 2023 – one percentage point above the high end of its expectations.
AI boost
Echoing recent statements from the likes of Salesforce, McDermott said on a conference call (see transcript here) that ServiceNow’s long-term trajectory is being “supercharged” by generative AI.
Some estimates suggest that generative AI could boost GDP by almost $7tn, the former SAP supremo pointed out.
“We see unprecedented parallel adoption [of generative AI] across consumer and the enterprise,” McDermott said.
“Our platform experts who have worked for the greatest brands and technology believe this moment is as transformative, if not even more so than the Internet or even the iPhone.
“But they’re careful to remind me, it’s all about delivering enterprise-grade, domain-specific large language models, which is the core of ServiceNow’s AI strategy.”
Partner power
Harbouring a goal of becoming “the defining enterprise software company in the 21st century”, ServiceNow this week launched ‘AI Lighthouse’ with NVIDIA and Accenture. The programme is designed to assist “pioneering customers” in implementing generative AI use cases.
“Our partner ecosystem has never been more invested than they are right now,” McDermott said.
“We announced an expanded strategic partnership with Cognizant to accelerate adoption of AI-driven automation. We expanded our partnership with KPMG to co-develop joint offerings through our finance and supply chain workflows.”
Exceeding expectations
ServiceNow inked 70 deals greater than $1m in net new annual contract value during Q2, up from 54 a year ago. Some one trillion workflows now run through ServiceNow each year, it claims.
Having topped guidance across all its Q2 top-line growth and profitability metrics, a bullish ServiceNow hoisted its subscription revenue and operating margin guidance for the full year.
