ServiceNow Boosts AI with Data.World Buy

ServiceNow, a leading enterprise workflow management platform, has announced its second significant AI-related acquisition this year, signing a definitive agreement to acquire Data.World. This move underscores ServiceNow's commitment to enhancing its artificial intelligence offerings and helping customers prepare their data for the AI era.

Strategic Move for AI-Ready Data

Data.World, a cloud-native data catalog and data governance platform based in Austin, Texas (founded in 2015 and now to be known as Declan), is set to play a crucial role in ServiceNow's strategy. According to Gaurav Rewari, SVP and GM of data analytics at ServiceNow, the acquisition aims to provide businesses with better resources to make their data "AI-ready."

"As I like to say, this path to agentic ‘AI heaven’ goes through some form of data hell, and that’s the grim reality,” Rewari told TechCrunch. He emphasized that Declan was chosen for its ability to help enterprises organize and easily search through their data. The addition of Declan's data governance tools is expected to help customers maximize the potential of their AI agents and other AI automation.

Rewari added, “We looked at a bunch of companies and came away so impressed with what they had built. We felt that the whole journey that they were on, with respect to metadata management [and] knowledge-based infrastructure, to provide cataloging of data across the vast enterprise and the governance of that data itself — that could be an extremely important addition to our product portfolio.”

Once the deal closes, Declan's platform will be integrated into ServiceNow and offered as a product to its customers.

Building a Robust AI Portfolio

This acquisition follows ServiceNow's agreement in March to acquire Moveworks, a developer of enterprise-focused automation and AI tools, for a reported $2.85 billion. These strategic purchases align with ServiceNow's plan to embrace agentic AI through a combination of in-house development and acquisitions.

Philip Kirk, ServiceNow SVP of corporate business development, highlighted this approach in March 2024, stating, “It is kind of three-dimensional chess right now to figure out whether to build, buy, or partner. I think the biggest thing that we try to prioritize is how we can make decisions that are in the long-term best interest of our customers, and that differentiate us from what we know we’re world-class at, which is enterprise automation in our platform.”

ServiceNow's recent moves signal a strong focus on equipping enterprises with the necessary tools to navigate and leverage the complexities of AI and data management effectively.

References

• TechCrunch: ServiceNow acquires Data.World two months after acquiring Moveworks
• ServiceNow
• Data.World
• Crunchbase: Data.World Financials
• TechCrunch: Data.World raises $50M to help enterprises organize and track their data
• PitchBook: Data.World Profile
• TechCrunch: ServiceNow buys Moveworks for $2.85B to grow its AI portfolio
• TechCrunch: ServiceNow is developing AI through mix of building, buying and partnering