Presented by ServiceNow
Rare diseases affect more than 30 million people in the U.S. — 10% of the population — yet many do not have treatments. At AstraZeneca, that gap creates urgent pressure, not only to discover life-saving therapies but to deliver them faster and more efficiently to patients. To meet that challenge, AstraZeneca turned to the ServiceNow AI Platform to accelerate onboarding, streamline lab requests, and help eliminate manual work — freeing scientists and support teams to focus on work that matters most.
“These aren’t incremental gains,” says Paul Fipps, president of global customer operations at ServiceNow. “We’re helping AstraZeneca save more than 30,000 hours a year so they can focus on what matters most: discovering, developing, and delivering treatments that save lives.”
AstraZeneca offers a glimpse into a broader transformation — one that could fundamentally change how the world works. In fact, IDC projects that investments in AI solutions and services will drive over $20 trillion of global impact by 2030.
“Companies creating the right conditions for agentic AI — autonomous AI agents — are already seeing efficiency gains of 20-50%,” Fipps says. These results are tangible: faster customer service resolution, reduced administrative overhead, and optimized supply chains. When executed correctly, the competitive advantage is unprecedented.
“Integrating AI into business isn’t just about cutting costs — it’s about rethinking priorities,” he adds. “Think about everything we can achieve with the extra time, resources, and brainpower. It’s an opportunity to redeploy our efforts toward solving problems that really matter.”
Realizing AI’s value through a platform-based approach
Successfully integrating AI requires overcoming three core challenges: data quality, legacy infrastructure, and integration complexity. According to McKinsey, 70% of organizations struggle to quickly integrate data into AI models.
Simply layering AI agents over these fragmented systems will only exacerbate complexity and limit potential.
“Work doesn’t happen in a single department, so neither can your AI strategy,” says Fipps. “Agentic AI needs a platform-wide strategy — one that spans every corner of the business, not just a single domain.”
That’s the approach ServiceNow is taking with Vodafone, one of the world’s largest telecom providers with more than 340 million customers. Together, they’re redefining service delivery for business clients.
“We’ve built an AI-powered Enhanced Service Monitoring solution that proactively identifies and resolves issues — often before the customer is even aware there’s a problem,” Fipps says.
“It’s about reducing disruptions, accelerating response times, and delivering seamless experiences across complex networks and cloud environments. This isn’t just an upgrade — it’s setting a new benchmark for how AI can transform customer experience at scale.”
Going beyond superficial AI
Many so-called agentic AI tools are little more than basic robotic process automation (RPA). True transformation runs deeper. It requires AI that’s fully integrated across the enterprise — connecting across the enterprise — linking customer data, knowledge bases, and operational systems to enable intelligent, fast decision-making.
That’s where platform architecture becomes critical. ServiceNow’s 20 years as the workflow automation leader is an incredible advantage: a powerful foundation of built-in workflows, automations, and knowledge bases. This legacy offers a head start — and a clear distinction between superficial AI and enterprise-wide transformation.
“Effective AI deployment isn’t a one-time ‘ta-da’ moment,” says Fipps. “It’s about improving thousands of processes and tasks. When those improvements occur on a unified platform, they build on each other and can create exponential efficiency gains.”
These gains are already real at ServiceNow.
“We’re running more than 100 different AI projects internally,” Fipps shares. “So far, we estimate we’ve saved more than $350 million through automation and process optimization.”
For instance, if one of ServiceNow’s 26,000+ employees have a finance-related question — say, their paycheck or their commission statement — they no longer wait four days for a response. With agentic AI, it now takes seconds.
Scaling AI by removing barriers
True transformation goes beyond efficiency — it’s about scale. AI Agents on the ServiceNow platform learn from trillions of transactions and billions of workflows the company sees on its platform, identifying repeatable patterns and turning them into pre-built agents that help solve high-impact problems across industries.
“We’re continuously refining our AI agent strategy to tackle our customers’ most pressing problems,” Fipps says.
This is where the ServiceNow AI Platform sets a new standard. The AI Control Tower serves as the single command center that orchestrates all AI agents, models, and workflows — providing full visibility, enterprise-grade compliance, and control at scale. It aligns AI initiatives with broader business and technology goals to ensure meaningful value delivery.
With ServiceNow AI Agent Fabric, AI agents from the likes of ServiceNow, Microsoft, Deloitte or in-house teams can communicate and collaborate seamlessly across systems. These agents act as a unified, intelligent system: sharing context, coordinating tasks, and delivering measurable outcomes.
The time for AI is now
The urgency of agentic AI means the time to act is now.
“To stay competitive, the smartest move is to make a platform bet,” Fipps says. “It’s not just about saving money. The most forward-looking companies are reinvesting those gains to accelerate what matters — like AstraZeneca speeding up drug discovery, or Vodafone enhancing customer service.”
In each case, AI isn’t replacing people — it’s enhancing their ability to solve complex challenges faster. While the platform matters, the true power of AI lies in the people it empowers.
“The organizations making the most progress are those using AI to elevate human potential,” he says. “They’re not just automating tasks — they’re driving human-centered innovation and transforming how work gets done.”
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