ServiceNow's AI Passport gives every AI agent an ID and an accountable owner
Representative image: Simon / Pixabay
ServiceNow on October 15, 2026, unveiled AI Passport, a signed credential setting what each AI agent may do, plus shadow AI detection, due in Q4 2026.
What Happened
ServiceNow, the US company whose software runs IT, HR and customer-service workflows for large businesses, on Thursday, October 15, 2026, announced new controls for the AI agents that companies are starting to deploy. The centrepiece is AI Passport, a signed digital credential that records who an AI agent is, what it is allowed to do, which systems it can reach and which person is accountable for it. ServiceNow also announced tools to detect unapproved "shadow" AI agents, track AI spending, and let staff build their own workplace tools in plain language.
Key Facts
- AI Passport gives each AI agent a signed credential listing its identity, permitted actions, the systems it can access and an accountable human owner.
- Permissions are checked while an agent is running, using the company's existing records of its IT systems and its governance policies.
- Shadow AI detection is meant to find agents that were never approved; ServiceNow plans more than 400 discovery connectors across vendors.
- AI Cost Management is designed to show companies what their AI use is costing.
- ToolSmith lets staff build tools for the EmployeeWorks portal from natural-language instructions; ServiceNow says it was trained on more than 75,000 APIs.
- AI Passport, shadow AI detection and AI Cost Management are due in the fourth quarter of 2026; the EmployeeWorks assistants and ToolSmith are in controlled availability now.
Why It Matters
Large companies are moving from AI chatbots that answer questions to AI agents that take actions: raising purchase orders, changing records, resetting passwords, or moving data between systems. That shift creates a new problem. When a person does those things, the company knows who they are and what they are allowed to do. When software does them, it often does not. An agent built by one team, using a login borrowed from another, can end up with far more access than anyone intended.
AI Passport is ServiceNow's answer. The idea is similar to an employee ID card combined with a list of job permissions. Each agent carries a credential that says what it may touch, and every action is checked against that list at the moment it happens, rather than only when the agent is first set up. Tying each agent to a named human owner also gives auditors and regulators a person to ask when something goes wrong.
Shadow AI detection addresses the other half of the risk. Just as employees once brought unapproved apps into the office, teams are now setting up AI agents on their own. A company cannot govern what it cannot see, so a scan that finds every agent running across many vendors' systems is a first step for any security team.
For Indian companies that are deploying AI agents, the questions are the same: who approved an agent, what it can reach, and who answers for it. Those questions are sharper in regulated sectors such as banking and insurance, where every change to a customer record must be traceable.
| Product | What it does | Availability |
|---|---|---|
| AI Passport | Signed identity and permissions for each agent | Q4 2026 |
| Shadow AI detection | Finds unapproved agents | Q4 2026 |
| AI Cost Management | Tracks AI spending | Q4 2026 |
| EmployeeWorks and ToolSmith | Staff build their own tools | Controlled availability now |
Impact
Short-term: ServiceNow customers can begin testing the employee tools now, while the governance features arrive before the end of the year. Rival software makers are likely to be pressed on how they control AI agents.
Long-term: Verifiable identities for AI agents could become a standard requirement in enterprise software, much as single sign-on and access controls did for human users.
Who is affected: Chief information and security officers, IT and compliance teams, employees who will build or use AI agents, and companies that build software on ServiceNow.
Key Takeaway
ServiceNow's AI Passport gives every AI agent a checkable identity and a human owner, a sign that controlling what agents do is becoming as important as building them.
Questions and Answers
What is ServiceNow AI Passport?
It is a signed credential for each AI agent that records its identity, the actions it is allowed to take, the systems it can access and the person accountable for it. Permissions are checked while the agent runs.
When will AI Passport be available?
ServiceNow plans to make AI Passport, shadow AI detection and AI Cost Management available in the fourth quarter of 2026. They were not generally available at the time of the October 15 announcement.
What is shadow AI?
Shadow AI refers to AI tools or agents that staff set up without approval from the company's IT or security teams. ServiceNow's new feature is designed to find such agents across systems from many vendors.
What is ToolSmith?
ToolSmith is a ServiceNow tool that lets employees build tools for its EmployeeWorks portal by describing what they want in plain language. It is in controlled availability.
Disclaimer: Prepared by the Peepals newsroom from publicly available sources with AI assistance. Information is accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication and may change. Images may be representative. Not professional advice. Report an error via our contact page.
Sourced and fact-checked by the Peepals Global Editorial Team
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Reported, fact-checked and published by the Peepals Global Editorial Team.
