ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott has described agentic AI as an “extinction-level” event for CRM.
Speaking on an episode of the Bloomberg Talks podcast, McDermott was quizzed about ServiceNow’s impressive recent earnings release, which saw the vendor beat expectations across the board.
In discussing the reasons behind the company’s success, the CEO was straight to the point: “It’s all about AI.”
McDermott highlighted ServiceNow’s AI capabilities as being key to helping secure its enviable stable of major clients, with the company landing or expanding deals with Starbucks, ExxonMobil, Standard Chartered, Intuit, and the state of California last quarter.
“It’s an AI world, and we’re here to win it,” he said.
AI has become the new UI, and we have that platform that is the leading enterprise platform in the world, which provides a single pane of glass that connects any agent, any model, any cloud, and any data source to the platform.
Following McDermott’s remarks, the conversation naturally swung towards everyone’s favorite iteration of the popular technology: agentic AI.
Most notably, he described the technology as “an extinction-level event for traditional CRM systems of record.”
Expounding on this, the CEO predicted that by 2029, 90 percent of the market will shift from these systems toward AI-powered systems of action with autonomous front ends.
That theory sets the basis of ServiceNow’s new CRM solution, which unifies customer support, sales, order management, and field service on one unified platform.
According to McDermott, no other vendor offers this end-to-end capability on a single platform.
Yet, back to the “death of traditional CRM” narrative, many other industry innovators seem to sense this shift.
In doing so, they are – rightly or wrongly – positioning “Salesforce” as the old and painting themselves as the new.
McDermott Remains Tight-Lipped on $4BN Cloud Deal
To deliver on its AI promises, ServiceNow must match them with a robust cloud infrastructure.
However, despite rumors circling that the vendor recently struck a $4BN cloud deal with Google, when questioned, McDermott gave his best politician impression, refusing to confirm or deny anything.
Instead, he took the opportunity to champion ServiceNow’s flexibility, claiming that the company integrates “with all of them.”
“If they want to run ServiceNow in those cloud formations, they may do so.
If they want us to connect to their data sources, of course we do that, or any other data source in any other cloud.
“So we’re the open architecture that makes it all come together and work. And that’s exactly what the world needs.”
ServiceNow Offers a Hiring Update
Beyond its customer transformations, AI is also influencing how ServiceNow builds its workforce.
McDermott revealed that while the company is still hiring, it’s becoming far more selective, particularly regarding roles that AI is increasingly automating.
“We’re slowing down the hiring in jobs that are, quite frankly, soul-crushing,” he said, citing IT support and customer service as examples where agentic AI is already handling the bulk of the workload.
“80 percent of customer inquiries and cases are now fully managed by agentic AI,” he added.
Those internal gains are more than theoretical. Indeed, ServiceNow’s internal AI agents have already delivered $350 million in added value, underscoring the cost-saving and productivity benefits McDermott alludes to.
At the same time, the company isn’t entirely pulling back from strategic hiring.
In January, McDermott confirmed ServiceNow’s plans to hire up to 3,000 new employees in 2025, stating that for every person brought into the business, its wider ecosystem would likely hire ten.
That broader vision aligns with his push to rethink not just how businesses run, but how teams are structured and supported.
Rather than sticking to outdated org charts, McDermott advocates for fluid, cross-functional teams supported by tireless AI agents, as he explains:
They work hard 24/7, you don’t have to pay them, and they don’t eat any lunch, and they don’t have any healthcare benefits.
“So, they’re very affordable, and that really complements our workforce.”
As AI takes over the heavy lifting across business processes, McDermott believes “well-run” companies will shift focus from reducing costs to unlocking entirely new business models.
