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ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott, says a revolution is taking place in support with artificial intelligence wiping out many of what he describes as "soul-crushing" roles.
The firm is shifting how it thinks about hiring and entire organizational structures as agentic AI takes over the core operational functions once handled by people.
"We're slowing down the hiring in jobs that are, quite frankly, soul-crushing jobs,” CEO Bill McDermott said. “I mean, just think about like IT support. You know, 97% of standard software automatically generated by AI now, and the pressure on supporting function and people has been cut in half. Customer Support. 80% of the customer inquiries in cases now are fully managed by agentic AI.”
Those roles, traditionally viewed as foundational to internal operations, are now being handled by intelligent agents, he said. The shift is broad in its application and fast-moving.
“And think about security and risk management in real time. All the patchwork and the change management is done by agents now, and the same is true. Go to market. You know, think about people that talk to customers. There's no prep work anymore. Their AI teammate is doing that for them at ServiceNow.”
“The speed of the company has accelerated dramatically. The supporting cast of the soul crushing work is now being done by agents,” he added.
AI is "extinction level" event
McDermott is a strong advocate of the advantages that AI is bringing to his company and described it as “an extinction-level event for traditional CRM systems of record. He predicted that by 2029, 90% of the market will shift from traditional systems toward AI-powered systems of action with autonomous front ends.
“They work hard 24/7, you don't have to pay them, and they don't need any lunch, and they don't have any health care benefits, so they're very affordable, and that really complements our workforce.
“So we're still hiring, but we're hiring less in those supporting functions. And I suppose that's going to happen to all well run companies.”
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AI will "obliterate" org charts
The shift isn’t just about automation, it’s about rethinking core processes and organizational frameworks.
“And I say that because we now need to think about how you run a corporation on ServiceNow, how you change the way you run your business processes? It could be order to cash, procure to pay, hire to retire, design to product. These are all processes that go across functions, and we need to have those 20th century org charts obliterated.”
“We now need to work in teams. Teams need to work across processes, and the agents need to be the best friend to humans,” McDermott said.
He said that if implemented correctly, this new approach powered by agentic AI has far-reaching implications.
“And if we do this right, the GDP of the world will go up, companies will outperform, not just on the op-ex cost, takeout, and productivity, but they will be building new horizons, new business models and new dreams on the ServiceNow platform, and we're excited."
