ServiceNow has agreed to acquire Element AI, a leading artificial intelligence (AI) company, for an undisclosed amount.
Canada-based Element AI is the fourth acquisition of ServiceNow is the rapidly growing AI market.
Worldwide revenue for the artificial intelligence (AI) market is forecast to increase at 12.3 percent to $156.5 billion in 2020.
Element AI will significantly enhance ServiceNow’s commitment to build the world’s most intelligent workflow platform, enabling employees to work smarter and faster, streamline business decisions, and unlock new levels of productivity.
Element AI co-founder Yoshua Bengio, a winner of the 2018 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his pioneering contributions to modern AI, will serve as a technical advisor for ServiceNow.
Element AI raised $150 million in September 2019.
ServiceNow will create an AI Innovation Hub in Canada to accelerate customer-focused AI innovation in the Now Platform. ServiceNow’s AI Innovation Hub in Canada follows similar investments by ServiceNow to create technology development centers in Chicago, Hyderabad, Kirkland, Wash., San Diego, and Silicon Valley.
“AI technology is evolving rapidly as companies race to digitally transform 20th century processes and business models,” said ServiceNow chief AI officer Vijay Narayanan.
ServiceNow has seen strong demand for its AI-powered products such as IT Service Management Pro, Customer Service Management Pro, and HR Service Delivery Pro. ServiceNow enables enterprises to surface and summarize relevant information, understand content and conversations, make predictions and recommendations, take optimal actions, and automate repetitive tasks.
The acquisition of Element AI is ServiceNow’s latest strategic investment to accelerate AI innovation in the Now Platform.
In March, ServiceNow hired Narayanan and launched Now Intelligence, a set of AI capabilities to help customers scale insight to action.
Element AI is ServiceNow’s fourth AI acquisition in 2020, following Loom Systems, Passage AI, and Sweagle.
Element AI was founded in 2016 by CEO Jean-Francois Gagne, Anne Martel, Nicolas Chapados, Jean-Sebastien Cournoyer, Yoshua Bengio, and Philippe Beaudoin. ServiceNow expects to complete the acquisition in early 2021.
